Embracing the Monster
by Mango Marbles
Summary: Sequel to Becoming Human and part three of Leave Normal Alone. Roughly three years after the events of Becoming Human, Sam is missing again. Only this time, he's left willingly.
1. Three Years Gone

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** Language.

 **Author's Note Part 1:** This is the continuation of _Becoming Human_ set about three years afterwards and part three of _Leave Normal Alone_ , which was based on a prompt given to me by M.J. Ellsworth. Without her, this story would not exist.

* * *

"Sam, you fucking idiot." Dean pushed the accelerator of the Impala down until it refused to give way anymore. "I'm going to kill you when I find you."

The weather in California was nice. Warm, but not humid. A bit of a breeze. Mostly sunshine and blue skies and pretty women.

But that was all that was nice about California, especially since it was dreadfully bare of Sam's presence.

Dean flipped open his phone and called his Dad, who thankfully answered after the first two rings. "Sam lied to us," he said.

"What are you talking about, Dean?" John asked, voice betraying every bit of exhaustion he felt. He sounded like he'd been pulled from the edge of sleep.

They'd finished a long hunt, a series of long hunts that had them going from one end of the country to the other, finishing close to Palo Alto. John wanted to wait until the next day to check in on Sam. Dean, on the other hand, couldn't wait that long.

Dean had the Impala's windows rolled all the way down, and he considered yelling Sam's name out onto the streets. He wanted to pull over next to strangers and ask if they knew where his brother was. His brother who had been less than mentally stable for years.

His little brother, whom he should have never left alone.

"I'm saying that Sam isn't at Stanford," Dean said. "Hell, the admissions department said that they never even received an application from anyone named Samuel Winchester. The little bastard lied to us, then vanished."

"Shit," John said, sounding much more awake. "Dean, he can't be out in the world by himself. He can't be off on his own without any sort of structure. Is he back with Bobby?"

"I don't know. I can call and see, but he would've told us that he went back to living with him. And why go to the trouble of forging an acceptance letter from one of the most prestigious universities? What does that accomplish?"

"It gets all of us out of his hair long enough for him to start whatever his real plan was," John said. "We thought he was safe at Stanford, so we felt no rush to check on him. Instead, we went from hunt to hunt for nearly the entire school year before we decided that, since we were close enough, we could stop and pay him a visit. We rationalized that we were busy and he was busy, so it was no big deal if we couldn't stop by until a little later. I guess he knew us too well."

"How could Bobby not figure it out and tell us?"

"Why don't you ask him?" John asked. "Call me back after."

"Yeah, will do," Dean said, ending the call and dialing in Bobby's number instead.

"Singer Salvage."

"Where the hell is Sam, Bobby?"

"Stanford, you know that. He's been there for a while now, and I think the school year's just about over. You take a blow to the head or something, son?"

"Here's the problem: he's not there."

"What?"

"Sam's not at Stanford. They never even received an application from him," Dean said. "Did you know about this?"

"Of course, I didn't know about this! You think I would've let him leave my house if I knew he wasn't going to a university?"

"Didn't you ever go down to visit him?" Dean asked.

"No, he came and stayed with me when he said that he was on winter break or spring break or whatever it was at that time," Bobby said. "I didn't know that he wasn't actually attending."

"Well, he sure fooled all of us."

"You're telling me. Look, get your ass to my place, and we'll see what we can figure out. Try and find a lead on him."

"Yeah, I'll pick up my dad from the motel and we'll be on our way over," Dean said. He hung up and turned around, heading back to the motel and feeling like every minute was too precious to waste now.

He had a little brother to find.

* * *

South Dakota felt farther away than ever, especially with John in the driver's seat and Dean left to stare out the window, thinking about how Sam managed to slip away so easily. He should've known that Sam was planning something. Thinking back over their phone calls and the times he visited him at Bobby's before he went—or didn't—to college, he should've been able to pick up that Sam was far from okay.

He was supposed to be at Bobby's to get better, but most of the times Dean saw him again, he seemed worse.

 _Sitting back and drinking a cold beer at Bobby's was refreshing after a long hunt, especially since visiting Bobby had the added perk of seeing Sam again these days._

 _Sam, who sat next to him and picked at loose threads on the cuffs of his sleeves, hadn't spoken as much as Dean expected. Usually, when they were apart for long enough, Sam would talk his ear off about all the things that Dean missed. He had to remind himself, once again, that this wasn't the same Sam he used to know._

" _How's that day therapy going?" Dean asked._

 _Sam shrugged. "I don't feel different. They just want me to talk about myself and how I feel and all that, but there's a lot I can't talk to them about. Not without getting locked up."_

" _Well, you haven't been in it that long. It might still help if you give it some time."_

" _Maybe," Sam said._

 _Dean finished his beer and started a second one, finding it harder to pay attention to the generic action movie he'd found playing on a random channel. The kind filled with cheesy one-liners and an abundance of obviously fake explosions. The kind where the hero always won and everything turned out okay, which Dean knew from experience wasn't how life worked. Every time he glanced at Sam, he seemed to be glaring at an empty corner of the room._

" _Sammy, what are you looking at?" Dean asked._

 _His question snapped Sam back to reality, and he shook his head._

" _Nothing. I just thought I saw something move for a second."_

" _Does that happen a lot?"_

 _This time, it was Sam's turn to look at Dean like he was crazy. "Of course not," Sam said. "You can't tell me you've never seen something in the corner of your eye, then looked and found that it was nothing."_

" _I guess it comes with our work," Dean said._

 _He spent the rest of his visit with a close eye on Sam, and it was easy to tell that Sam made a conscious effort to not let his eyes wander around the room. Sometimes, he even bit his tongue, like he wanted to say something, but refused to let himself utter a single syllable._

"We'll get there soon, Dean. We'll find him, don't worry."

"I didn't say anything."

"Yeah, well," John said, "you didn't have to. When it comes to Sam, your emotions are easy to read."

Dean didn't have a response to that. He knew that he was an open book when it came to Sam. He just wished that Sam was still an open book to him.

* * *

Bobby welcomed them into his home as he had done dozens of times before, with a cold beer and a meal that was heated from a can (he told Dean once that both were more for him than for his father).

"Wish it was better circumstances that brought you two here," Bobby said once they settled at his table. "Sam's always been too smart for his own good."

"You think we would've known he was planning something," Dean said. "How could we not know? How could _I_ not know?"

"If Sam doesn't want you to know what he's up to, then you won't know," John said, shaking his head.

"Are there at least any leads?" Dean asked.

Bobby shook his head. "Been trying to call him, but it goes straight to voicemail. Makes me wonder what he's up to. Whatever it is, it can't be good. Not if he's gone through so much effort to hide it."

Dean took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Not long ago, he was expecting to see his brother again for the first time in far too long. Somehow, he ended up at an old wooden table trying to scrap together a starting place to find said brother because he wasn't where he claimed he would be.

And damn if that didn't feel like a betrayal.

" _Hey, Sammy," Dean said, flipping through the few channels his current motel room offered._

" _Hi, Dean."_

" _How're you doing? Handling the college life alright?"_

" _Yeah, I'm not bad," Sam said. "It's a little easier. The setting is way different from a normal high school, and I really just blend in."_

" _Wearing too many layers to hide yourself?"_

" _You would, too, if you were me."_

" _Well, try not to get heat stroke," Dean said. "I know it's pretty warm in California, and I've seen you wear a sweatshirt in hot weather back in Texas. Anyway, impressing all your teachers? I still can't believe that you got into Stanford, man. After all you went through, that's one hell of an accomplishment."_

" _There are a lot of people here. I'm trying not to draw attention to myself, from students or teachers."_

" _Yeah, I get that. Are you seeing any counselors there, or are you happy enough with the time you spent in that day program?"_

" _I'm not seeing a counselor or anything. Look, Dean, I have work that I really need to do. I'll talk to you again another time."_

" _Alright, Sammy. Take care."_

 _Dean barely got his words out before Sam ended the call._

"He was pretty vague all the times I called him," Dean said. "I wonder if I would've been able to figure it out if I asked more questions. Asked for more detail."

"Like your dad said, if Sam doesn't want you to know something, you won't know it," Bobby said. "I'll call Caleb, see if he can track Sam's phone."

John stood up. "We should get some rest while we can. And don't keep yourself up, Dean. You're gonna need to be in top shape. I feel like we have a long hunt ahead of us."

Dean followed his dad upstairs, splitting off to stay in the room he always shared with Sam and lying on the bed that was supposed to be Sam's. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He still had a lot of questions for Bobby, like how he didn't realize when he dropped Sam off that Sam didn't actually stay there.

But first, he did need some sleep. He tried to make himself comfortable, but it was hard to take his mind off of Sam in that room, especially when some of his things had been left behind. There was a small collection of things that must have held meaning to Sam while he stayed there, little trinkets and knick-knacks. The room had a touch of personality to it that they never got to add to the motel rooms they stayed in.

Sam's absence felt as prominent as it did the night Dean came back from a bar to find fifteen-year-old Sam missing. The night that started it all.

And that scared him.

* * *

 **Author's Note Part 2:** And so a new journey begins to find a Sam who's disappeared of his own choice. I hope that you enjoyed this set up and that you will stick with me while we set forth on a new adventure.

Please leave a review before you go!


	2. The Hunter and the Hunted

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Dean woke feeling no more rested than when he went to bed. His dreams had been of memories that he didn't care to remember, and then he had to face another waking nightmare when Sam's absence once again sunk in.

He sat up and rolled his neck, the cracks removing some of the kinks that came from his twisting and turning throughout the night. Then, he stretched his arms high over his head. It felt wrong, being at Bobby's and getting a full night's sleep (restful or not) when Sam wasn't there. Sam could need him. Sam could be in trouble, and he had no way of knowing or helping.

They should have never let him leave Bobby's, false possibility of a bright future or not.

Feeling powerless was not something Dean enjoyed. He might as well go back in time to when he was four years old, standing in a hallway and watching flames and smoke spill out of Sam's nursery while their father yelled Mary's name. Only this time, he was more useless. At least back then, he'd been able to carry Sam out of the house and to safety.

He slipped into auto-pilot and got ready for the day before going downstairs, his bare feet barely feeling the chill of wooden floors clinging to the remnants of winter.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee was the first thing to greet him, filling the air with caffeinated promises that he had a feeling he would need plenty of for the coming days. Possibly weeks. This was another hunt, but it had a more important timeline than some of the others. They needed to find Sam before he really fucking lost it. They needed to hope that he hadn't already.

The second thing to greet him was a pair of grunted acknowledgments. John and Bobby already sat at the table with mugs of coffee that had likely been refilled a time or two. Judging by the dark circles under his eyes, Bobby had spent the night trying to dig up what he could. John's dark circles could have been from the same reason, but Dean suspected that, instead, his father had tried to sleep, but his sleep had been no better than Dean's.

"Caleb come up with anything?" Dean asked.

Bobby shrugged. "He did, but I'm not sure it'll be much use to us. Sam's last call was weeks ago. In Seattle."

"Okay," Dean said with a nod. "Seattle is a start. It's something we can work with."

"Maybe, but I went looking for the news stories around the time he would have been there. I think I have an idea of what he's been up to."

Bobby grabbed a stack of papers from his desk and put it on the table in front of John and Dean, fanning them out so that they overlapped, but the headlines were visible.

"If you look at them in order of the dates they were each published, they tell a pretty good story about what Sam's been up to," Bobby said. He pointed to the first one. "A group of kids that've been missing show up out of nowhere. Some of the kids can't identify the man who saved them, they had too much else goin' on to handle, but the ones that had clear enough heads to give descriptions describe someone who roughly matches Sam."

Bobby pointed to the next article. "Then, a bunch of old, supposedly abandoned buildings burn down within and around the city. The authorities label it as arson, not accidental."

Bobby pointed to the last article. "They find human remains in the buildings and identify them with dental records when the jaws are intact enough to allow it. They find pictures of the people the bodies are identified as and show them to the kids who were found, and the kids confirm that they saw them while they were in captivity."

"They're traffickers, aren't they?" Dean asked. "Sam is hunting traffickers and saving the kids they take."

"Looks like it," Bobby said. "The city called him a vigilante, but it doesn't look like they were able to figure out who, exactly, he was."

Dean laughed a bit. "He always did like Batman."

 _He didn't know why they got the costumes, but he supposed that his father might've felt guilty that they never got to dress up and participate in Halloween Trick-or-Treating or anything else like normal kids. Besides, in the start of November, the local secondhand shop had advertised a clearance sale on everything Halloween._

 _So, he got a Superman costume, and Sam got a Batman costume. Like the kids they were, they put the costumes on as soon as they could and wore them for the rest of the time they were in that town, whose name Dean would forget within the month after leaving. It was small and the only memorable part about it was the experiences they had there. The small taste of normal they got._

 _And that they were able to rent a house for once. It wasn't anything special, and had just barely enough room for a family to live in, but while they were in town, it was theirs. That was all that mattered._

 _When John went out, it was up to Sam and Dean, like always, to entertain themselves. Dean climbed onto the roof of the garage because he could, and Sam followed him._

 _Dean jumped off the roof because he was Superman, and it would take more than a jump from that height to hurt Superman. He could fly._

 _Then, Sam followed him. But Sam was Batman, and Batman couldn't fly. Had Dean really been Superman, he would have made it to Sam in time. He would have saved Sam from his fall. Would have saved Sam from the horrible snap of his wrist breaking._

 _But he didn't make it in time to catch Sam or break his fall_

 _Sam yelled, but it quickly dissolved into wailing as he cradled his arm. Dean knelt beside him and coaxed him into letting him see the break. He looked up at Dean with wide, teary eyes._

 _He didn't ask Dean for help. He already trusted that Dean would make everything better without him having to say a word._

"Only he has real abilities," John said, pulling Dean from one of his fondest memories. "This is really bad, Dean. He's killing people. He's killing _humans_."

"He's killing humans that we told him weren't human. We kept telling him that traffickers are nothing more than monsters. Damn it, Dad. I knew we should've checked on him a long time ago. It was always just one more hunt first. That turned out well."

"I thought I was doing the right thing," John said. "Those leads we kept following? I thought they were for the demon with yellow eyes that's been bothering Sam for years now. I wanted to get rid of him. Keep him from messing with Sam any more than he already has. I'm guessing that all of those leads were a set-up, though."

"Which means what?" Dean asked.

John took a deep breath and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It means that the demon has its claws deeper in Sam than we thought. Who knows what it has him believing? What it has him working towards?"

Dean slumped in his seat, the weight of the world on his shoulders pressing him down. Sam was saving victims whose place he'd once been in, and there hadn't been anyone to save him before he was broken beyond repair. There was pride in that; it was admirable work. But there was also a sliver of terror logged in his heart because his dad was right. No matter how they worded or justified it, Sam was killing humans. From the looks of the articles, he was just beginning.

How many lives would he take before they caught up to him? Was he really under the demon's influence as much as John believed?

Dean ran a hand over his face, then through his hair. He felt like he was going to be sick.

John stood up. "I'm gonna need to borrow your library, Bobby. See what I can dig up on demons with yellow eyes and psychics."

"Course," Bobby said. "I'll call all the hunters I know and tell them to keep an eye out for Sam."

"Tell them to be careful. That Sam might be under demonic influence. That there might be a demon with him."

Bobby nodded. "This is one routine that I'll never get used to."

"It shouldn't be even be a routine," John said.

Dean agreed with that, and when John and Bobby left him alone at the table, he pulled out his phone and held it. He didn't flip it open or try to call Sam. He used to be so sure that Sam would always answer the call once he saw Dean's name on the caller ID.

Now, he wasn't so sure.

* * *

Sam's phone rang, making a racket as it vibrated against the wooden nightstand beside his bed.

"Are you going to answer it?"

Sam shrugged.

"It's Dean."

"I know that," Sam said. Dean was the only one who called him on a regular basis.

The man standing near the door blinked, eyes turning from grey to gold. Three years and Sam still didn't have a proper name for the demon on his shoulder (and it would be his luck to get a demon instead of an angel). "You always answer for him."

"I know that, too," Sam said. "But if they aren't chasing your false leads anymore, then he's calling because he wants answers. He'll want to track me or convince me to meet him so that he can lock me in a house or anywhere else that will let him keep me under twenty-four hour observation."

"You don't want that? Getting back to life with your big brother always there?"

"I'm doing good work, and I'm not sure that he'd understand that. Killing Liu was different. I don't know their names this time, and they've never done anything to me, but I kill them anyway in ways that aren't natural."

"And?"

"And I enjoy it," Sam said. "And if Dean knew that part, I'd be under lock and key for the rest of my life. If I have to make a choice, I choose to be the vigilante that the media calls me."

The demon walked over and put his hand on Sam's shoulder.

Sam resisted the urge to recoil away from the touch. Working with a demon didn't mean that he enjoyed the work or the demon, and having him present in a vessel was more unsettling than only having his voice in his head or his shadow lurking in corners. Added to that, he still didn't like being touched by those he didn't know well. His family was different. Bobby, Caleb, and Pastor Jim, too. None of them would want to hurt him.

The demon, well, Sam didn't know his end-game. He didn't know what he was gaining from helping him hunt and kill traffickers. He was a wildcard. An unknown.

"I'm proud of you," the demon said. "You might not see it now, but you're making the best choice that you can."

Sam nodded, the motion jerky and every muscle tensed to the point it hurt.

Dean would be so disappointed in him for working with a demon, for believing his words, and Sam wasn't sure that he could deal with that. Setting up an escape combined with the demon's plan to string John and Dean along with leads carefully planted on the opposite side of the country as them had been easy. Sam had one goal in mind and he worked to achieve it.

Dealing with the consequences to all the planning he went through for the sake of his own hunting career, that was something he brushed off. Something he locked in the back of his mind because he wasn't sure that he could still go through with it all if he gave those consequences too much thought.

His phone on the nightstand fell silent.

* * *

Dean flopped back onto his bed ( _his_ this time, not Sam's). All his calls had gone unanswered, and he'd spent all day trying. Without being able to explain how, he _knew_ that Sam knew that they figured out he wasn't at Stanford. On the list of things he was running from, they must have shot to the top since he always used to answer when Dean called.

He wanted nothing more than to hear Sam on the other line so that he could yell at him until he understood how messed up it was to deceive his family and go hunt humans (and, yes, they were humans no matter how many times they told him otherwise). Demand that he explains why he felt that he couldn't trust his own family to help him with the mission he'd given himself (or that the demon had given him, but that was a situation that Dean wasn't ready to let himself think about yet).

Instead, he'd only been able to leave voicemails asking Sam to call him back. What was the use of a phone if one party refused to pick up?

There was a knock on the door before it opened and John's head peeked in. "Still no answers?"

"No," Dean said. "I swear he somehow knows that we know. He's always answered before, or at least sent me a message if he couldn't talk. Now? Nothing. No answer. No call back. Not even a single fucking message."

John entered and sat on the edge of Sam's bed. "You can try again tomorrow."

"Did you find anything useful?"

"Demons with yellow eyes are stronger than the average demon, from what I've found. They can withstand things that lesser demons can't, like standing on holy ground or contact with holy water. Makes it easier for them to fool hunters and blend in."

"And one of them is with Sam right now," Dean said. "That's just great."

"Whatever it wants with Sam, it can't be good. I'd even bet that the night Mary died, that demon was after Sam."

"Do you think she knew? That it was a demon, or that they existed at all?"

John shook his head. "No, she would've told me about the supernatural world if she knew about it, if only so that we would be able to keep you and Sam safe. She was just a worried mother in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the cost was her life."

They sat in silence for a while, and Dean swore he could feel the heat of that fire from all those years ago on his skin.

"Why would a demon want a psychic?" Dean asked. He loved his mother, but talking about her never became any easier. Nothing they did could save her now, but they could still save Sam if they figured out what was going on.

"Sam's strong, whether he wants to be or not. And psychics act as beacons for the supernatural. He's using Sam for something that he can't do himself, but I don't know what it could be. I do know that Sam isn't the only one, though. There have been other kids whose mothers died in a fire in their nursery on their six-month birthday."

"What?" Dean asked. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"I didn't want you to worry about Sam even more. Besides, I thought that we were following the yellow eyed demon's trail and that we could take care of him before he got the chance to use Sam."

"Yeah, I see that worked well."

"Now's not the time to get an attitude, Dean. Get some sleep and clear your head. Sam needs you as a hunter," John said.

He left without waiting for any response from Dean.

Dean stared at the ceiling. It'd been three years since he had the constant sound of Sam's breathing throughout the nights, but now the room felt especially empty and silent without it.

He used to be so sure that he was doing the right thing. He always made sure Sam didn't go to bed hungry. That he had clothes that fit and the school supplies he needed. Material needs had been easier to handle, and he could see the results of his efforts.

He never imagined that he would fail as many times as he had. He was afraid that he would never see the Sam who was a little boy in a Batman costume, looking up at him with wide eyes because his arm was broken and he trusted Dean to fix it.

Worse, he feared that innocent, trusting part of Sam was long gone, torn away and replaced with something twisted by demonic forces.

No, a restful sleep was not in his future.

* * *

Sam tossed and turned, cold sweat coating his skin and forcing him to shiver. He woke up, tangled in sheets, and got out of bed in the darkness of the middle of the night. He took deep breaths to calm his heart rate and splashed water on his face in the bathroom like it could wash away the Hell that still haunted him behind his eyes.

Was he still a bad person if he killed those who were wicked? Was his brand of justice leading him to Hell beside the other damned souls?

He kept his head down. He didn't want to look in the mirror when he sometimes saw yellow eyes staring back at him.

He didn't bother lying down again. Instead, he sat with his back against the headboard and turned the little TV on. All he could find were infomercials about products he never planned on using, but it was better than being shrouded in silence with only the voices that made their home in his head around to interrupt it.

He went over his research again, blueprints of buildings no longer believed to be used and article upon article documenting cases of missing persons, some of which had been missing for a decade or longer. Those ones were beyond his help, long gone and hidden somewhere he would never find them. While he was supposed to wait a few more days before he made his move—strike the night before another auction was held—he wanted to make his move _now_. He knew how afraid those about to be auctioned had to be. He remembered how afraid he had been throughout his experience of being trafficked.

As much as he didn't want anyone to spend another minute afraid and alone while their captors readied to collect a check at their expense, he knew that preparation was key. If the demon taught him anything, it was to prepare for the long-term, not let the short-term blind him. That led to mistakes that couldn't be easily fixed.

He looked at his phone on his nightstand. Maybe it was time to let Dean help him. He wanted to help trafficking victims, but it felt wrong to be working with a demon. He felt something inside him becoming more and more twisted with each life he took. His dad would be so disappointed in him. Hadn't he been raised better than to work with the demon who killed his mother? Shouldn't he be a little warier? Shouldn't he question the demon's words and commands?

Dean would talk him out of it. He would beat some sense into his head. Show him what was right and wrong. Remind him who he really was at heart, without anything influencing him, because he couldn't remember.

He grabbed his phone and flipped it over and over in his hands. Maybe it was time to call Dean and let himself be tracked. Maybe it was time to just hear Dean's voice again, to be honest with him now that they knew he wasn't at Stanford. As if he could've been accepted given his academic history. It wasn't like homeschooling with Bobby had focused on a rounded curriculum; he'd opted to spend most of his time researching hunts for hunters and learning ancient history and languages with Bobby.

With a sigh, he set his phone aside again. Maybe another day, he would find the courage to face whatever his family had to say about his deceptions. About how he lied to them and ran off, following the instructions of a creature said to be pure evil.

But today was not that day.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Well, Sam is up to no good and Dean is not much closer to finding him. Thank you to all of you who have reviewed, followed, and favorited already! I've decided to try out chapters that are a little shorter than in Becoming Human in an attempt to put out faster updates. If I have a long chapter, I have a long chapter. If I have a chapter that's a bit shorter, I have a chapter that's a bit shorter. No big deal.

Please leave a review before you go!


	3. A Small Lead

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

"Looks like he hit Minneapolis a while back. Before Seattle, according to the dates," Dean said, scrolling through an article on Bobby's computer. He shook his head. "So close to Pastor Jim, and none of us even knew."

"Doesn't seem like he's following any specific pattern, then," John said. "Just bouncing from city to city at random. Most of them are bigger cities, but that's all they have in common."

"Which makes it harder for us to track him. Do you think Missouri has a psychic connection with him that could tell us where he is?"

Bobby slapped the back of Dean's head. "Missouri isn't a psychic GPS hotline. Besides, I think that she would have to be within a certain distance to be able to tell where another psychic is."

"You can't deny that it wouldn't make this easier for us if she could find him like that," Dean said.

"The thing about life is that it ain't meant to be easy," Bobby said.

"Yeah, I've figured that one out."

Dean found a few more articles, but it looked like the Seattle ones were the most recent. Which meant that they were working with a trail that was cold until a new incident. But waiting every time for the next article that could tell them where Sam was to pop up would leave them one step behind him.

They needed to find out where he was going, not where he's been.

"Let's say that we find him and that demon is with him," Dean said. "Then, let's say that we figure out a way to trap the demon and exorcise him. If he's so much stronger than the average demon, what's to stop him from crawling right back out of Hell and picking up where he left off? Isn't there something that can kill him? Actually _kill_ him?"

"Sure, there are legends of all sorts of weapons that can do things we'd think are impossible," Bobby said. "The problem is knowing which legends are a little more than imaginary and, after that, where the hell those ancient weapons would be. Or if they're even in working condition."

Dean let his head drop to the desk. He knew that finding Sam again wouldn't be easy, but he never expected it to be this hard either. If Sam could just give him something, he'd run with it.

John put his hand on Dean's shoulder. "Maybe you should take a break, Dean. Clear your head."

Dean obliged and left the room, but he grabbed a couple of books from Bobby's library before secluding himself in the second-floor bedroom. He couldn't bring himself to take a real break, not when their mission was to find Sam, but he could use a bit of silence. He could use a break from the feeling of judgment he got from his father. The feeling of failing to protect Sam once again.

John hadn't said anything implying that he held Dean accountable for Sam's vanishing act, but Dean blamed himself more than enough for the both of them. Maybe it wasn't useful trying to track him through articles saying where he'd been, but Dean could at least look for a weapon that _might_ really exist and that _might_ be able to kill the demon that had been bothering Sam for so long (and killed their mother).

Besides, he had always held a more of a liking for stories of mythological gods and creatures than he had for any of the junk assigned to him during his days at school. He had the hope that they might be real and he would be the hunter that finally came across them. Immersing himself in a story that wasn't his own would be a good enough break for him, even if he was still working towards helping Sam. It was a win-win situation.

So, he took the book from the top of the small pile he'd brought into the room with him, placed it on his lap, and flipped it open.

Research was never his strength (it was Sam's), but he'd do anything if it meant helping Sam.

* * *

Sam found a couple of coins left behind between the cushions of the ratty couch in his motel room.

His dreams had once again been filled with Hell, and he knew without a doubt that the visions in his sleep were of the real Hell. He still felt the heat and flames on his skin as if he had physically been there while he watched demons torture the damned souls that found their eternity to be filled with hellfire and pain. The souls were strung up on racks and meathooks like they were in a butcher's shop, the prime cuts.

He watched demons tear apart the souls while their screams reverberated in his ears. He watched the bodies be dismembered piece by piece over and over, their intestines pulled out one inch at a time, then reform at the end so it could all start again. And the demons laughed and taunted the tortured souls, all of which were in too much pain to answer or to comprehend their words in the first place.

Despite his horrifically vivid nightmares, Sam woke feeling well-rested and strong. Energized and rejuvenated, even. So, he left his motel room early in the morning with those few coins jingling in his pocket with each step he took under the cloudy sky.

A dreary day seemed appropriate for what he'd be doing when night came. Traffickers never learned. With the articles about him, he thought that it'd be more difficult to bust their operations, but it was always just as easy as the last time.

Not that he minded.

He searched for a payphone that he recalled seeing on the other side of the city when he first drove in. While he could have gotten in his car and found it in a fraction of the time, he couldn't convince himself that it was worth the gas usage, and he had all day anyway.

 _In the middle of the night, he ran with bare feet on a gravel road, feeling the cuts and stabs of sharp pieces, but continuing anyway._

He glanced down at his feet and saw that the pain he felt was only the phantom grasp of distant memories. He had sturdy shoes on and there was solid concrete beneath his feet, not loose, stabbing gravel.

Payphones seemed to be a dying breed as cell phones became more prevalent among the population, but Sam managed to find one tucked away between two low-traffic streets on the outskirts of the city. His hand rose to slip his coins into the coin slot, but he froze.

 _He moved as quickly as he could down the gravel road, clutching the change the man at the motel's front desk had given him in his hands so tightly that the edges dug into his palm. He couldn't stop the trembles that shook his body or the rush of adrenaline that came from being so close to salvation._

 _The police were on their way, and soon Dean would be, too._

 _He almost dropped the coins trying to put them in, and his breath came in harsh gasps as he punched in the number he knew by heart, praying that Dean would pick up._

Sam shook his head, trying to silence the remnants of his past. That was years ago, but some memories refused to fade no matter how much time went by. He took a deep breath to steady his hands and dialed Dean's number.

As it rang, the childish part of him wanted Dean to hurry up and answer, just so he could hear his voice. The rational, afraid part of him wanted to hang up before Dean answered and pretend that he never tried to call. He could still run away, and sometimes he felt that was all he was good at these days.

But the ringing stopped and he heard Dean on the other line, making the decision for him.

"Hello?"

"Dean…"

"Sammy?" Dean asked. Sam could almost see him sitting up straight the second he heard Sam say his name, and it brought a small smile to his face.

"Yeah. Uh, don't bother trying to track the phone call. It's a payphone," he said. "And I'll be out of here by tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, I saw that you've been busy," Dean said. "If you tell me where you are, you know I'll be there as soon as I can, right?"

"I know, Dean. But then what?"

"I don't know yet, but we'll figure out something. I know that you're working with that demon, aren't you? The one that took your body for a joy ride in China?"

"How do you know that?"

"Lucky guess. Dad had a suspicion, and you just confirmed it for us. He's having you kill people, isn't he? He's at least encouraging you. You have to know that he's using you for something. Something bigger and worse than just killing traffickers."

"You said that they weren't human. That the traffickers are just as monstrous as the things you hunt with Dad."

"We lied, okay? That's what we do. They're still human, even if they are shitty people. And I know that they are the same as the people who hurt you, but that doesn't mean you go around killing them."

"I know it's messed up, Dean. Do you know what I see every time I close my eyes? I see _Hell_. Real Hell, and I can't stop thinking that it's where I'm headed."

"Then, let me help you," Dean said. Pleaded. "C'mon, Sam. I know you're still a good person. We can fix this. We can get you back on the right path _together_."

"I'm doing good work, Dean," Sam said. "I'm saving kids from having to go through what I went through. I'm saving kids who the traffickers would kidnap and sell in the future so that they'll never have to taste the darkness that humans create for each other."

"Look, I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you when you needed me to be. I'm sorry it took me this long to realize how far off the reservation you are, even if you don't completely realize it yourself. But I can be there _now_. You just have to let me, man. Please."

Sam closed his eyes, trying to fight off the urge to give in to Dean's words and unspoken promises.

"I'm running out of time, and I don't have more change for the phone," Sam said. "I know you want to help, Dean, but I don't think that I can be saved anymore."

He hung up, ignoring Dean's shouts.

He walked away from the payphone. No one dragged him away against his will this time. He wasn't drugged and tossed into the back of a van. He left Dean behind with his own two feet and his free will.

He wasn't sure which case was worse.

* * *

Dean stared at his phone, cradled in his hands. How had Sam's psychological health declined to such a bad state without any of them noticing? How deep had the demon's influence burrowed within him, and how much of it was Sam himself?

Bobby knocked before he let himself in and sat on Sam's bed.

"I heard you yelling," Bobby said.

Dean shrugged. "Sam called, and he doesn't want to be found. He went to the trouble of finding a payphone, but I bet that he's going to be moving on to somewhere else soon."

"Give me your phone," Bobby said.

Dean tossed it across the room to Bobby, who caught it with ease. It reminded Dean of the days when John dropped him and Sam off there, and Bobby let Dean skip practicing with guns and other weapons. He would pull out an old baseball glove from the back of the closet in his bedroom, one he claimed he used as a child, and he played catch with Dean in the closest park. No worries or responsibilities, just a small dose of freedom and normalcy.

He tried to remember if Sam ever got the chance to play catch, even with Bobby and not their father, but nothing came to mind. He supposed that was another failure to add to his mountain. He should have paid more attention to the tiny details when they were growing up, but he'd been just a kid himself.

Still, it left him wondering how many good memories Sam had from his childhood, which was first cut short when he found out about the supernatural at age eight, then again at age fifteen when he was subjected to the worst aspects of humanity.

"That's a Nebraska area code," Bobby said.

"Nebraska?" Dean asked. "That was… That's where Sam was auctioned, wasn't it? In Lincoln?"

"Think he's gone back?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I think he's gone back with a vengeance. He thinks that he's still doing the right thing by killing them. He thinks that he's beyond saving. How the fuck are we supposed to fix this?"

"Some things can't be fixed, Dean," Bobby said.

"So, we're just supposed to give up on Sam?"

"Of course not, but maybe we're looking at it wrong. We just have to be there for him and keep him from straying off the path because I don't think he knows the difference between right and wrong anymore. Working with a demon to kill humans? That can't bring anything good about. He might be saving other humans, but what's the cost? What's the endgame?"

"How? If he wants to go, he will always be able to leave, and we wouldn't be able to do a damn thing to stop him. It's not like he'll just stop being psychic. He'll always have that advantage."

"You're right, but would you rather sit around and let him go off on this rampage of his, which, might I remind you is orchestrated by a _demon_?"

"No, but it's hard. I used to be who he ran to, you know? Not who he ran from."

Bobby went over to sit next to Dean, handing him back his cell phone. "Life is full of change and loss, son. But Sam's still alive, and he called _you_. He didn't have to. He could've kept his distance and his silence. The fact that he _didn't_ do those things means that the innocent Sam we know is still in there somewhere. It means that you can't give up yet."

"We still don't have a way to find him," Dean said. As much as he wanted to hold onto any hope, he didn't want to put his faith in something and only be let down because of it.

"I know some people near him who might be willing to make the trip and, at the very least, trail him until we catch up," Bobby said. "I'll make a few calls, you just keep looking for a way to take care of that demon."

At the thought of going through more ancient books, Dean was ready to gouge his own eyes out with a spoon. The ink on the pages started swimming in his vision hours ago, and he felt the beginning of a nasty headache forming. "I've been reading all day, but I haven't found anything. What if we're wasting our time and none of this mythological shit exists, or it exists but can't kill a demon?"

"That's a chance we have to take. Your daddy is set on looking for a gun made a long time ago by Samuel Colt and said to be able to kill anything, supernatural or not. Only we run into the same problem in that no one's claimed to have seen the thing in decades."

"So, we have nothing all around."

"Not quite," Bobby said. "We know that Sam is in Nebraska right now. It's not much, but it's something. More than we had an hour ago."

"The people you know near there won't hurt Sam, right?" Dean asked.

"You think I'd ask anyone I thought might so much as think about hurting him to do this?"

"No, but I don't think most people are open-minded about a human with psychic abilities working with a demon."

"Nothing to worry about. Ellen's good people. A family woman."

"I hope you're right," Dean said. "I just want Sam to be alright. I just want him to be _here._ "

"I know. We all do. And we'll get him back, Dean. You have to believe that."

Dean nodded, and Bobby gave him a pat on the back before he left the room. He wanted to believe. He wanted to believe more than anything that Sam would be back with them soon, sleeping on the bed opposite of his where he could hear his deep, even breaths throughout the night. Where he would be only a few steps away if Sam had a nightmare, and he could stay up the rest of the night trying to take away his fears.

But after everything they've all been through, he had a hard time believing in anything.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thank you for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting!


	4. Midnight Fires

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** Death.

* * *

The thin beam of his flashlight illuminated the halls of the dilapidated building that was once a mental hospital, closed down decades ago. The kind of place that performed lobotomies and where brain surgery was an accepted treatment for all types of mental illness. Old hospitals were too convenient for traffickers to use, and he hated it. He hated that they were twisting the image of a place that was meant to save people.

He stepped through a path of disturbed dust—footprints visible enough to let him know that he was right in believing that this building wasn't as abandoned as the rest of the city thought—and over chunks of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling and walls. He wished that he had sought out a mask to keep from breathing in the dust and debris, but he would have to manage with stinging eyes and a burning, scratchy throat that sent him into fits of dry coughs.

Some of the doors lining the halls were open, and Sam knew he could skip them, but he glanced in each of them anyway. Just in case.

The real problem was that he didn't have a way to open the electric door locks. Not yet.

" _Second floor. Asleep in a janitor's closet."_

Quiet sobs found their way through the doors and into the halls. As much as Sam hated it, he couldn't do anything to help them yet. He couldn't let the sounds distract him. They would be okay waiting for just a little longer.

 _Nights were the hardest. Not because he was afraid of the dark, though he was sure some of the other kids kept there had to be. Not because he was alone in a strange place, although that knowledge did nothing to make the nights easier either._

 _Nights were the hardest because only then could he really hear the others kept there. Only then was he reminded that the nightmare he was living was a shared one. It was then that the choked sobs from other rooms were the most audible, like the wailing of ghosts, and they echoed all the way to Sam's room._

 _They were the sounds of those who were afraid and had given up hope. The sounds of the lost who only wanted the comfort of their family. Some of them had to be miles away from home, the same way Sam was miles away from where he'd been taken. They had to know that no one was coming for them, that their families had to rely on the police for answers._

 _Sam knew that his family would be doing the best they could, but for a second, he believed that he was just as abandoned as everyone else._

Sam found a staircase and slowed his steps so that they were careful and silent. The janitor's closet was easy to distinguish, being the only closed door without any strange locks. No, it was a slab of unassuming wood with a lock that Sam picked with the speed that years of practice brought.

True to the demon's words, one of the traffickers in charge of the night shift was asleep in the closet, slumped against a wall with his head drooped down enough for his chin to nearly touch his chest, slowing rising and falling with his deep breaths.

Sam crouched in front of the man and pulled a knife from a sheath fastened around his lower calf and hidden by his jeans. He clasped his hand over the man's mouth, tilted his head back, and dragged the knife across his throat.

The man's eyes opened wide in his sudden panic, and he tried to raise his arms to stem the flow of blood or to pull Sam's hand from his mouth. All he accomplished was a few feeble flails while he made wet, gurgling sounds of protest (probably). Sam watched his strength fade and his eyes become dull as his life faded. Through it all, he felt nothing. No sympathy. No sadness. Before him was a man who deserved to die. A man who made choices that hurt others because he was selfish and it was easier to prey on the weak.

Sam removed his hand, wiping the smudges of blood that escaped the man's mouth away on his jeans. He went through the man's pockets until he found a plain, white proxy card.

" _There are over a dozen kids here, you better hurry up if you want to be done by sunrise."_

He left the closet, closing the door behind him. That was one trafficker who would not be making it out of the inevitable fire that would eat the building away. One more soul sent down to Hell to be at the mercy of demonic torturers for eternity.

The first door beeped open after a quick scan of the proxy card, leaving him silently thankful for slackers. If there were more than a dozen kids being held in that building, he'd have to work quickly and keep his eyes out for any other traffickers skulking through the halls.

Not that they could hurt him if they tried.

The door slid open and he saw a shivering shape on the bed in the corner, a worn blanket draped over it. The kid looked like he was around the age Sam was when he laid trapped in a room because of traffickers. Although, the traffickers and buyers all thought that he was younger than he truly was.

He approached with slow steps, and his flashlight glossed over writing on the wall from when the hospital was open and active, half of the marking scratched away or faded with time.

'The Devil whispers in my ear,' it said, the letters written in black varied in size and formed a jagged line.

He didn't like how well that single sentence described the past three years of his life. While it might not be _The Devil_ whispering in his ear, one devil could do more than enough damage to the mind.

He thought back to Dean's assertions that the demon was using him. Killing humans was not going to lead him anywhere good, even if he was saving innocent lives in doing so.

He ignored the words scrawled on the wall along with his own doubts, leaning over the boy in the bed. It took only one forceful shake to wake the kid, and Sam clasped his hand over his mouth much like he did to the trafficker earlier. The missing piece that made this time different was the lack of his intent to kill.

"I need you to be quiet and listen to me," Sam whispered. "I know you're scared, but I'm going to get you and all of the others being kept here out. Understand?"

The boy nodded.

"Your wrists are bound aren't they?"

He nodded again.

"Alright. I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth, and you're going to stay silent. Then, I'm going to cut your wrists free. After that, we're moving on to the next room until everyone is out and safe. Got it?"

One more nod, and Sam was cutting through the ropes binding the boy's hands in front of him (why did this kid get ropes when he had gotten zip ties?). While Sam worked, the boy stayed silent, not making a sound. Sam didn't delude himself into thinking it was out of blind trust. He knew that if someone came in to save him when he was the captive, he would have gone with because any other option was better than waiting around to be sold like a piece of property.

The 'over a dozen' turned into nearly two dozen, and Sam was beyond grateful that he'd managed to find and save them. It was the largest group he'd come across so far.

One of the girls had her hand fisted around the hem of his shirt and hid behind his leg as he led them through to the exit. She reminded him of the girl who'd been strapped into the plane to Asia beside him, and the girl trapped at Liu's club for whom he made a deal to keep safe, if only for a few nights.

He ushered them out of the building, glancing at one of the traffickers he'd telekinetically thrown and pinned against a wall out of sight from the children before they noticed him at all. They didn't need any additional trauma piled onto the mound they already had.

He told the older kids to watch the younger ones while he did a final sweep of the building, then he promised to get them away and call the police to come collect them. A small taste of freedom was sweet enough for them to be satisfied with his plan of action. Though, he suspected that their silence was due to more than just the possibility of rescue. He _knew_ that there were darker reasons that they held their tongues.

Back in the building, he cut the throat of the man pinned to the wall, letting his limp body slump like the others, the mere handful he'd found in the building.

The demon appeared in another new vessel, eyes flashing yellow as he handed Sam a gallon of gasoline and kept a gallon for himself. "A little something to accelerate the fire and keep it going."

Sam made a trial of gasoline down the main hallway of the first floor, just a little insurance that his fire would continue spreading after he left as there wasn't nearly enough to coat the floors of the entire building. It was a little insurance that he could do more damage before any firefighters were called to the scene. He didn't know where the demon poured his gallon of gasoline. He just knew that none of the buildings he burned had been salvageable.

He started the fire near the main entrance, and immediately left to usher the kids farther away as quickly as he could. Thankful that it was night, he moved them a few blocks under the shroud of darkness before he found a good enough place to stop and call the police, leaving an anonymous tip.

The first boy he saved, and the one that he thought was about the same age as he had been, stopped him as he started to leave.

"How did you know we were there?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "I've been doing this for months now. You get used to patterns."

"What did they want us for?"

"You don't want to know," Sam said. In this case, ignorance was bliss. It was best for all of them to try and forget that any of this happened. Try to get back to their normal lives.

"Please?" he asked. "I'm old enough to know. I _deserve_ that much."

"They wanted to sell you," Sam said. "Make you someone else's slave."

"How do you know?"

"It happened to me."

Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked away, leaving the boy and the rest of the kids behind. He didn't want to be there when the police showed up. They'd have too many questions he didn't want to answer. They'd hold him as long as they could to get information out of him. Hell, they'd probably find plenty to try charging him with (arson and murder, at least).

If the kid had any more questions, he kept them to himself. He didn't follow Sam, and Sam was glad to shuffle back to his motel room in silence.

* * *

" _You did well."_

Sam shrugged. "I saved a lot of kids, but killing only a handful—if that—of traffickers at a time feels like too little. There are so many out there. I just… it feels like I'm never doing enough."

This connection with the demon felt natural now, but he was aware of how unnatural it was. How the demon shouldn't be able to dial into his mind and listen to his words like they were doing something as simple as talking on the phone.

" _You're destined for something greater, Sam. Once you reach your full potential, they'll tremble before you."_

"Why are you helping me? What do you get from all of this?"

" _Fresh souls sent to Hell."_

"That can't be all. That's not your only reason."

" _Everything will be clear in time. Right now, just be glad for our mutually beneficial partnership."_

He felt the connection cut off, like the quick snip of a thread in his mind. Dean's implications that he was being used (the thoughts that he always tried to push away and not think about) left him more uneasy the more he thought abut them. He'd taken the demon's help for granted, although it had felt wrong to be working with something he was raised to see as the epitome of evil.

He originally planned on burning down the warehouse where he was auctioned that same night and leaving the town the next morning, but his racing thoughts held him in place. Instead, he lied on the bed of another cheap motel room, the likes of which would have sent him spiraling into flashbacks years ago. While he stared at the ceiling, he wondered where the point of no return was.

More importantly, had he already passed it?

* * *

Dean flipped the pages of his book back and forth. He wanted to fall back into his pattern of going out to the nearest bar and drowning his thoughts away because there was no Sam waiting back at the motel. No Sam for him to send into flashbacks with the scent of alcohol clinging to him.

No Sam needing him.

It'd been easy to go back to comforting himself with women and whiskey without a Sam needing his comfort. Although, when he spent his time at bars, guilt ate away at him. He couldn't get it out of his head that he would go back to the motel room, and he'd find himself back in the room where Sam was taken from, bloodied floor and his silver knife left behind. It was irrational and he knew that it wasn't going to happen, not when Sam was safe at Bobby's.

Then, Sam 'went to Stanford' and he hadn't felt the need to rush and check-up on him. He should've, but he got caught up with hunts, and his dad now suspected that they were being purposely led around the country by the demon poisoning his little brother's already broken mind so that Sam could get a headstart.

He wasn't reading the book on the table in front of him, no matter how many times he flipped the pages. The longer they looked and came up with nothing, the more disheartening the entire process became.

From the kitchen, he smelled Bobby cooking a late dinner for them. It was nothing extravagant, and he wasn't hungry, but it would fill him enough. (Food, he reminded himself now, was for energy, and he'd need plenty of energy for this Sam hunt.) He remembered loving to visit Bobby in the winter for the promise of warm meals and hot chocolate. For the promise of Sam having a place that would be reliably warm to sleep that night, and a bed for each of them that they knew would be soft and clean.

John sat across from him, trying to track down the fabled Colt gun.

"You think that really exists?" Dean asked. "The Colt."

"Monsters exist, I don't know why something that could kill any of them can't exist, too," John said, not taking his eyes off the mess of scattered papers in front of him.

Bobby placed a bowl of soup in front of each of them before setting one down for himself.

"Any word from your friends?" Dean asked.

"Not yet."

Dean took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, stirring his too-hot soup. "Do you think that they'll find him? That they'll be able to trail him?"

"I don't know, Dean," Bobby said. "Sometimes, we just have to have faith in others."

Dean scoffed, but hid the sound by shoving a spoonful of scalding soup into his mouth, barely feeling the burn. Having faith in others was far from being a strength of his.

He wanted to be the one _doing_ whatever it took to fix their current problem. Giving that control over to someone else was tough.

Especially where Sam was involved.

"What did you tell them?"

Bobby shrugged. "I told them to look for fire."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sam is still following the demon, but he's starting to ask questions. John is set on finding The Colt. Dean is still feeling hopeless. It's a great time for Winchesters all around.

Thank you to everyone who read, reviews, follows, and favorites. Your support means a lot to me!


	5. Blood and Fire

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Another night of terror-filled sleep bled into another morning alone. Sam left his motel room to wander out for breakfast. He wasn't hungry, but he knew he should eat. He could almost hear Dean nagging him about getting _something_ in his stomach to keep his strength up, but he felt plenty strong and wondered if it still applied.

The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up when he stepped into the motel's parking lot. He glanced around, but found nothing. He ran a hand down his face and told himself it was nothing. After seeing shadows and demons in the corners of his sight for years, it wasn't a stretch to think that this feeling of being watched, this paranoia, was just another trick of his mind.

He woke up early, so he had plenty of time to wander the streets of the city, past people walking with purpose towards the start of their normal days. Burning the warehouse wouldn't take much effort. With how much practice he'd gotten with his powers, destroying a building of that size was child's play.

He found a small cafe despite his lack of desire to eat, at the very least in the mood for a cup of hot coffee. He couldn't shake the feeling of being watched as he took a seat in a corner table, or the feeling that he needed to call Dean. After last night, he had more blood on his hands, along with the demon's ominous words revolving around his destiny. A destiny that he didn't know or understand.

Maybe he was too broken to know the difference between right and wrong. How had he gotten so confused? Saving kids was a _good_ thing. He was doing something _good._ So, why did it take one conversation to suddenly make all his actions seem wrong?

His hand brushed over the lump of his cell phone in his pocket, about to reach in and pull it out when the waitress interrupted him.

She held a little notepad in one hand and a pen in the other, dyed blonde hair tied back into a tight ponytail.

"What can I get for you?"

"Just coffee," Sam said.

She took his menu with a frown. "Sure you don't want something to eat?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure."

Sam held his phone in his hands, turning it over repeatedly as he debated calling Dean. The raging thoughts in his head kept him distracted enough that he didn't realize how much time passed and the waitress was approaching him once more.

She returned with a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast. "A grown man has to eat," she said. "Don't worry, it's on the house."

She smiled, and right before she turned to walk away, Sam swore he saw her eyes bleed into an inky black.

He rubbed his eyes and ran both hands through his hair before he left the little dinner. He was losing his mind. He had to be, because it was better than the alternative.

It was better to be going insane than to have demons watching his every move.

* * *

Dean worked on one of the junkers in Bobby's yard, forced to take a temporary leave from helping with anything research related. Time passed quickly when he worked, and mid-morning bled into evening before he knew it. While he preferred to be covered in oil and sweat more than being at a table covered in books and ancient papers, he couldn't stop thinking about how useless it was. This wasn't even his car. It wasn't the car of anyone he knew, either. Someone in town asked Bobby to fix it up, would pay him to fix it up.

Sometimes, Dean forgot that was the real purpose of the Singer Salvage Yard. To him, it'd always been a second home. A place to recuperate after a taxing hunt, or a place to call when he came across a new creature. A place to go to when he wanted to visit Sam.

He was too lost in thought to notice Bobby until his hand was on his shoulder.

"Got a call," he said.

"Yeah? From your friend?" Dean asked. He tried not to let his hope bleed into his words. He didn't want to be disappointed and let down again, but it was hard not to grab onto any little thing that might lead him closer to Sam.

"From my friend," Bobby said. "She found Sam, and she's keeping tabs on him without getting too close."

"And?"

"She thinks that he seems nervous or paranoid, but she's more trying to keep track of his movements rather than inspect his health. He's still in Lincoln, though. A bit odd, ain't it? To call you and imply that he'll be moving on, but he decides to stay."

"Well, Sam doesn't exactly seem stable these days. Who knows what's going on in his head?" Dean asked. "And who cares. We can deal with that after we catch up to him. So, when do we leave?"

"I don't know, Dean. Maybe we should wait and see which way he decides to go next. Try and cut him off."

"What the hell, Bobby? Lincoln is less than a four-hour drive away. We could get there and catch Sam tonight before he has time to give us the slip again. We have to go _now._ We should've started on our way yesterday, even if we thought he'd be moving on to a different city."

"Dean, we should think before we do anything. We aren't prepared to handle any demon as strong as the one that might be hanging around him."

"I'm loading up the Impala and leaving with or without you and Dad. I'm getting Sam back," Dean said, shutting the hood of the junker. "I'll be on the road in half an hour. Be ready by then if you're coming along. I don't care either way."

Dean walked away to clean himself off and pack, but he still heard Bobby mutter behind him, "You Winchesters are gonna be the death of me."

* * *

Sam didn't go anywhere else to try and eat after his experience at the cafe. If he wasn't hungry before, he definitely wasn't now. Yet his stomach did not protest at its emptiness. His body did not feel any more drained through his hours of pacing as it had when he woke up. He holed himself in his motel room, triple checking that the door was locked and closing the blinds, only to peek through them every few minutes.

If anything, he felt an excess of energy. An overcharged vibration ignited his nerves and begged for motion. For action.

He should've been out of the city by now and on his way to somewhere else. He'd told Dean it wouldn't be worth tracking him because he would just be moving again shortly.

Yet there he was, caging himself in his own room and debating over whether he should go to the nearest grocery store for canisters of salt for pouring lines in front of the door and the windows. Barricade himself in and wait for a human to find him.

He felt like something dangerous for the first time in years. He felt like he should have been locked up in a psych ward and forgotten somewhere along the way. Wouldn't that have been easier for everyone? Pump him full of medication until he became a zombie and couldn't use his powers if he'd wanted to.

But it was too late for all of that, and he feared he was too far gone to benefit from such interventions. Being committed would be equivalent to throwing his life away, and he wasn't ready to do that just yet.

With sudden decisiveness, Sam burst out of his room and started up the shitty car he'd hot-wired somewhere along the way. Just one car in a string of many made to keep himself from being followed. Variety, the demon insisted. Being consistently inconsistent, he'd said. Well, Sam didn't have any trouble with that one.

It was barely evening, the Sun just started to sink over the horizon, but what was the point of waiting for the night to take its full reign? The warehouse was far enough outside the city that he doubted anyone would see him, or care about its loss (aside from traffickers, but with the hospital burning down and so many kids escaping, they had other concerns to deal with. At least, the ones who lived).

* * *

The trip was short, but he couldn't help feeling like he was running from something. Or worse, towards something.

He was… really sick of running. He was sick of being tracked and babysat, by humans and demons alike.

He arrived early enough to see the last of the sunset cast a glow on the building to make it look like it was already burning before he set it aflame.

" _You can handle this one on your own."_

He knew that without the demon telling him. He faced the building from across the street. It'd been a transition point in his life. The cut off between who he used to be, and who he became. The place where he was bought by two men who wanted to use him until there was nothing left to use.

" _Dip deeper this time. Just what can you do?"_

Sam took a deep breath and raised his hand toward the building. He felt the power inside him, more familiar than ever. It filled him, burning brighter when he reached for it. The sensation of being strong in inhuman ways that once scared him, left him high. It left him craving more.

The building erupted in a raging inferno, blinding and violent. Smoke billowed off into the sky as towers of angry, dark grey clouds.

He was doing something good, wasn't he? Taking away another resource from the traffickers. Burning another piece of the past that still haunted him.

But what if all the things he thought were good, weren't? What if Dean was right, and that he had finally lost what little sanity he had left?

He wished that he could rewind time and stop himself from calling Dean the day before. He wanted to scoop Dean's words from his memories so that he could stay in ignorance and deny the truth in them.

" _What has you so confused?"_

Sam hid his inner thoughts from the demon, unaware that he possessed the ability until he used it in that moment.

"This place brings back a lot of memories," Sam said.

" _Go back to the motel room and rest. Clear your head tonight, but remember that dwelling on the past will only leave you weak."_

He felt the link fade, more tuned into it now that he paid attention to it.

If the demon was allowed to keep secrets, so was Sam.

He got back into his car and left the burning warehouse behind. Somewhere along the way back to the motel, firetrucks sped past him in the opposite direction with their sirens blaring. So, someone had already noticed, but he shouldn't be surprised.

Maybe it was good he hadn't waited until it was fully night. The inferno he caused would've been far too visible.

* * *

Saying he sped was an understatement. In fact, Dean was shocked that he somehow hadn't been pulled over in his haste to reach Lincoln.

John had taken up Sam's old role in the backseat, pouring himself over books and loose pieces of paper while they drove. Once it got too dark for him to see by only natural light, he used a flashlight.

Bobby sat in the passenger seat, taking frequent calls from Ellen, the friend of his who'd been close enough to get to Lincoln faster than anyone else they knew could've. The friend of his who'd managed to find Sam. And for that, she was a friend of Dean's, too.

"Anything new?" Dean asked. He hated that it was taking so long to get to Sam. Four hours was too many.

Bobby shrugged. "He hasn't caught on that she's tracking him, at least. Ellen might not be a frequent hunter, but she's damn good when she needs to be. Though, his lack of attention might be due to what she describes as erratic and on-edge behavior."

"What? Erratic and on-edge, what does that mean?"

"I don't know, Dean, but she thinks that something's got him freaked. He burned down a warehouse and he headed straight back to his motel room. From what Ellen can tell, he's settled in for the night."

"And she's at the motel watching to make sure he doesn't make a run for it?"

"Yeah. She's in her car in the parking lot, keeping an eye on his door."

Dean pushed the Impala as much as he could, trusting her to take them to Sam and get him back to Bobby's safely. "Just tell me where the motel is."

* * *

Under Bobby's direction, it didn't take them long to find the motel and pull into the parking lot beside Ellen's car.

Anticipation electrified every nerve in Dean's body to the point that he was shaking as he stepped out of the car and met Ellen properly for the first time. She had an air of authority about her that warned that she wasn't the type to mess with.

"Good seeing you again, Ellen," Bobby said.

"You too, Bobby," she said. "I just wish it were under better circumstances."

Bobby chuckled a bit at that, though there was no humor in it. "I think we all wish that. Anyway, you remember John, I'm sure. This here's his older son, Dean."

Dean reached out his hand to shake hers, surprised when she pulled him into a tight hug instead.

"Yours is a face I'd never thought I'd be seeing."

"Why's that?"

"Well, your dad disappeared, and he took you and Sam along with him as far off the hunter grid as he could."

Dean looked over his shoulder at his dad, who wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. "What happened, Dad?"

John shrugged. "Do you really want to waste time talking about that after your haste to get to Sam?"

Dean pressed his lips together into a tight line. "No, you're right," Dean said, keeping his tone icy. "We can talk about it later."

Keeping secrets from each other was exactly what kept getting them in trouble. He would find out what John was hiding, no matter how trivial it was.

But first, Sam.

He had a pistol on him, but he wasn't sure that he'd need it. If Ellen had been watching just Sam, then he shouldn't need any weapons at all. And if Sam's company was a demon, well, a pistol wasn't going to be of any use to him.

Still, its presence offered him a bit of comfort. It gave him the illusion of safety.

Dean led the way to the motel door, but it was his dad who picked the lock. In the moment before he turned the doorknob, his mind transported him back to the night he went out for drinks. He almost expected to find the room empty, signs of a struggle and bloodstains evident.

Once he opened the door and turned the lights on to illuminate the room, he almost would've preferred walking in on the empty room and having to work to find Sam again.

The reality of what he walked in on would just be one more gallon (or ten) of nightmare fuel added to his mind.

Sam was in the room, lying prone on the bed in a sleep that looked peaceful for the moment.

But Sam wasn't alone. A man towered over him. Once Dean saw the man glance over at them, standing in the doorway, with his sickly yellow eyes, he knew that it was _The Demon_. The demon who refused to leave Sam alone, probably for longer than any of them thought. The demon who threatened to take Sam away if they didn't take better care of him.

The demon who more than likely killed his mother.

He grinned at them, his slit wrist dripping blood right into Sam's open mouth.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Dun, dun, dun. What could possibly go wrong next?

Thank you for that support! I appreciate every read, review, follow, and favorite.


	6. Out of the Frying Pan

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Dean's mind went blank and instinct took over. Instinct to put himself between any threat and Sam, regardless of his own well-being. Before he had the chance to get close, the demon was gone, a final drop of blood flowing down from where his wrist had been.

Dean looked back at the doorway. At his father, Bobby, and Ellen frozen in place with slack jaws and wide eyes. Behind him, Sam still slept unaware. Although, he was starting to toss and turn more, lines appearing on his face as his dreams visibly turned from peaceful to painful.

After running his hand down his face, Dean grabbed the little wastebasket (and noted that it was painfully empty, not even a single candy wrapper tossed into it) and shook Sam awake. "You need to throw up, Sam."

Sam woke up with a jolt, scooting up the bed and away from Dean. His eyes darted between Dean, John, Bobby, Ellen, and back. "I… What? What's happening?" he asked, once he got a better bearing of his surroundings. He stuck a couple of fingers in his mouth and pulled them out, the skin tinged red. "What the hell is in my mouth?"

Dean shoved the wastebasket closer. "It's fucking demon blood, so spit it out. Throw it all up."

Sam turned pale to the point of transparency. "I… I… What?"

John came up beside Dean. "Sam, you need to throw up to get out any blood you might have swallowed," he said.

His soldier tone masked any emotions he was really feeling, and Dean wondered if this was going to cause another rift between John and Sam the same way the reveal of Sam's psychic abilities had. If they had to take another trip to Missouri to talk to her about Sam again, so be it. They could deal with it after they figured out what to do about this demon blood situation, because he felt that one was a little more pressing.

John pried Sam's mouth open and shoved his fingers into Sam's throat until he gagged and started throwing up viscous blood mixed with bile. Dean shoved the wastebasket under Sam's face just in time to keep him from staining the bed, holding his long hair back with the other hand. It fell down into his eyes and was disheveled and generally not cared well for, but Dean wouldn't dare cut it. No matter how much he wanted to take scissors to the mess of a mane his brother had grown, he knew that Sam had issues with his hair ever since the traffickers shaved his head.

Once he started, Sam didn't stop vomiting. Even after he had nothing left in his stomach to expel, he dry-heaved into the wastebasket. Dean was about ready to join him, the pungent scent of death, blood, and sulfur emanating from the wastebasket churned the contents of his own stomach. It was a scent that likely did nothing to help Sam stop his dry-heaving.

Dean took the wastebasket and tried to wash it out in the bathroom, but the stench refused to be removed. So, he left it in the tub. They were taking Sam back to Bobby's, and Dean was pretty sure that he didn't have anything left to bring up. He could last roughly four hours, and they could leave that rancid wastebasket behind.

Something told Dean that Sam wouldn't be willing to eat on the trip back anyway. There wasn't a concern that he'd have anything left to bring up.

He took a second to splash water on his face, still unable to fully process what he'd seen when they barged in.

Why would the demon be bleeding into Sam's mouth? What was the point of it?

Why Sam?

He walked back into the other room, more questions floating in his head than ever before.

Sam was shaking. Whether it was because of the physical exertion that came with forced vomiting, or because of the shock of finding out that he had been fed demon blood in his sleep alongside waking up to a small cavalry, Dean didn't know. He just knew that he needed to get Sam somewhere far away. Somewhere demons couldn't reach him.

"If you don't need anything else from me, I'd like to be getting home to Jo," Ellen said. For how pale she looked, her words were calm and steady.

"You've already done plenty, Ellen. Thank you," Bobby said. "Just… please keep quiet about this. We don't need other hunters spreading rumors."

Ellen nodded, and before she left said, "Of course, I'll keep quiet. If it were Jo…"

Everyone's motions were stiff and their tones emotionless. Bobby watched and waited in case he was needed, but it was John and Dean who got Sam up and into the back of the Impala, grabbing and tossing his bag into the trunk.

Dean sat with Sam in the back, one arm slung across his trembling shoulders. John drove, not so much as glancing at them in the mirror. Bobby sat in the passenger seat, repeatedly glancing back at them to the point that he shifted in his seat to keep a constant eye on them.

Dean was the one who broke the tense silence with a "What the fuck just happened?"

"The demon wants your brother for something," John said. "He's grooming him for whatever that is. We have to get rid of his influence before Sam…"

"Before Sam what?" Dean asked. Sam was awake beside him, but he wasn't sure that any words were making it through to him.

"Well, let's just hope we can separate Sam from the demon before it's too late," John said.

Dean took in the grim look of determination on John's face. He loved his father, and he knew that his father loved both of them. However, it scared him to think how far John would go if it meant saving Sam from becoming the demon's puppet.

Dean looked at Sam, who was so different from and so similar to who he used to be. He still saw the insecurities and the self-consciousness of the boy who was scarred by human traffickers. But now, he also saw more of John in him than ever before. He was on a path of vengeance that he created, unaware of what the effects were on himself or others.

Sam didn't seem aware of what was going on around him. His eyes were glazed over, and it reminded Dean far too much of how Sam was immediately after they rescued him from Liu's club. How he was so disconnected, and it was something that Dean could have happily lived the rest of his life without seeing again.

"You know," Bobby said, "Sam helped me build a panic room in my basement shortly after he started living at my place. The walls are made of consecrated iron and the grate over the ceiling fan—for ventilation, of course—casts a shadow of a Devil's Trap over the whole room. No demon can crack into that place. It might make a decent bedroom for Sam for the time being."

"Thanks, Bobby," John said. "As long as we can keep the demon away from Sam, we should have enough time to figure out how to kill the bastard."

"We can't keep him locked in a room like that," Dean said. He didn't want to put Sam back in that position again. The last thing Sam needed was more freedom stolen from him. Even his sleep was no longer safe.

At the same time, they couldn't trust Sam to be alone or make decisions for himself. He made that very clear.

"We can't let the demon keep influencing him, either," John said. "I don't want to keep him locked up, but I'll do what I have to."

* * *

Three and a half hours later, they pulled into the salvage yard. Despite making good time in getting back (John sped more than Dean dared to on the way to Lincoln), they felt like the longest hours of Dean's life. Just like three years ago, Dean had no idea where to start helping Sam.

He shuffled Sam into the house and followed Bobby to the panic room, Sam allowing himself to be moved without protest.

While the outside of the room looked intimidating—seeming more like an over-sized furnace than a room—the inside was nice. Bobby (and possibly Sam) had furnished it to be more like a bedroom than anything, and Dean imagined that was the point. If someone needed to lock themselves in a room to be safe from threats outside, they'd want to be comfortable. There was a cot, a desk with a lamp, some magazines, and a battery powered radio on it, a few bottles of booze, and no shortage of weapons that could keep both the human and the inhuman at bay.

Sam settled easily on the cot, not making a noise as Dean pulled the blankets over him and realized that they must have forgotten Sam's shoes back in Lincoln (and Sam should consider himself lucky that Dean thought of grabbing his bag before they left that shitty motel room).

Not a pressing concern.

John and Bobby left after John was convinced that no demon would be getting into that room. Dean assumed that the hunt for the Colt was now an obsession for both of them. Given what they saw, how couldn't it be their primary concern?

Dean's primary concern was different, as it always had been. He needed to watch out for Sam first, and he trusted that John and Bobby would do well enough researching without him.

Dean dragged the chair from the desk to beside the cot, settling himself in for a long night. It'd been a long day already, and he felt exhaustion creeping deep into his bones, but he had no plans for sleeping. He couldn't if he tried.

Sam stared at the ceiling, and Dean didn't blame him for his silence or shock. How would he feel being woken up by his family to find out a demon was feeding him its blood? How would he feel being taken from his quest of vengeance and kept under a soft lockdown for his own safety?

How would he feel if their lives had been switched?

He would have broken a long time ago. Sam was resilient in ways that he wasn't. While he was proud that his little brother (whom he raised more than their father) was so strong, that pride was overshadowed by the sadness that such strength had been necessary.

"It… tasted kind of good," Sam said. Quietly, almost to himself.

"Get some sleep, Sammy," Dean said. It was the only thing his faltering mind could come up with.

They were all running on autopilot as it was, the scene they walked in on largely ignored for the time being. They all had jobs to do to prevent something like that from happening again.

Sam _liking_ the demon blood? That was even more unexpected, but it didn't need to reach the ears of anyone else. He hated it, but he was almost afraid of how his dad would react to that bit of information. When Sam and demons were involved, he was unpredictable.

He would let Sam's like of the demon blood become one more thing to rattle around and fester in his head. It was easier to pretend that Sam's words were a product of a stressful night, but Dean knew they were more than that.

Everything circled him back to one question: what the hell were they supposed to do?

Sam's eyes slipped shut, but he wasn't sleeping. Dean wasn't so out of touch with his little brother's mannerisms that he couldn't tell when Sam faked sleep.

He took a deep breath. This was all turning out much more complicated than he naively believed when they set out to track Sam down. With his head cradled in his hands, elbows supported by his knees, he did something he hadn't done in years. Something he gave up on long ago.

He prayed.

* * *

There was no way to tell what time it was while in the panic room. Eventually, Sam fell asleep, but Dean stayed up and watched the ceiling fan spin above him. He kept his mind blank. While he had a lot he should think about, he wasn't ready to face the realities those thoughts brought with them.

The door creaked and groaned before it opened to let John in, carrying two plates with eggs and toast.

"It's morning?" Dean asked.

John shrugged. "Late morning, but we had a late night."

They both glanced at Sam. John gave one plate to Dean and set the other on the desk.

"Wasn't sure he'd want to eat, but I think he needs the sleep first anyway," John said.

"Not like he threw up any food last time. Look how thin he is, too."

"I know, Dean."

"And what is even going on? What was that demon doing last night? Why? Why Sam? Just… Why?" Dean tried to keep his voice down and let Sam rest, but the frustration and anger he kept bottled up were threatening to spill over.

"I think that was why the demon was at our house all those years ago. I think… I think he fed Sam some of his blood back then, and Mary got in the way. When we were outside of the house, I noticed blood around his mouth, but I thought it was just from Mary."

"But that doesn't make any sense. Why feed blood to Sam? Then and now?"

"I don't know, Dean. Bobby came up with a few ideas, but there's no way we can be positive without asking the demon. Blood is related to a lot of things. There are blood spells. There's the idea in some cultures that consuming a part of something else with give you its strength. It's an endless list, and the fact that it's from a demon adds in another element that we don't have resources for."

Dean pushed his food around his plate, taking a few bites, but tasting little more than sawdust. "What do you make of it?"

"That it's a problem that needs to be dealt with immediately. It's not just about Mary anymore."

"What if we're too late?"

Dean saw the determination set back into John's face. The lines of his face looked harder and more prominent, and he could almost hear him gritting his teeth together. Dean couldn't decipher that look. He couldn't read past the tension and stony exterior of his father.

"We aren't," John said.

"You can't know that for sure."

"If we're too late, I'll take care of it," John said. "But we'll save Sam somehow."

John left the room after taking a long look at Sam.

Dean, alone with Sam again, ditched his attempt to eat. He could still smell the blood and sulfur from Sam throwing up, and he wondered if it would linger in his nose forever.

Why wouldn't this nightmare just end already?

* * *

 **Author's Note:** In typical Winchester fashion, they want to deal with a bad situation while talking about it the minimal amount. There's a lot of shock for all of them to recover from and processing to do, but dealing with a strong demon who has his eyes on Sam has never been easy or convenient, and has never allowed them the time they need or want.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! Your support means a lot to me.


	7. In the Blood

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

The first thing he was aware of was that his mouth had been replaced with a desert at some point in his slumber, dry to the point of being painful. His senses returned sluggishly as he swam back to consciousness. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn he was submerged in water. The air itself felt heavy. Oppressive.

He felt strange overall, like there was something building deep within his soul. A need for something he didn't understand or couldn't comprehend.

An ocean of white noise dissipated and focused into sounds that made sense to him: the slow whir of a large fan, even breaths, and a radio playing music softly. He caught the familiar smells of Bobby's home, _his_ home, and the unmistakable metallic scent of the panic room that they could never mask, not that they were bothered enough by it to try.

He tried to remember why he would be in the panic room. They almost never used it, and he hadn't been in any room of Bobby's house in quite some time.

"Sammy?"

He remembered Dean shaking him awake, then his father forcing him to throw up. After that, it was mostly a blur. He didn't remember leaving the motel room, much less entering the panic room.

Yet, he was on the cot and tilted his head to see Dean sitting beside him, a prominent five o'clock shadow gracing his face. He looked like shit, but Sam figured he must look worse considering how he felt.

"Hey, Sam," Dean said. "You with us again?"

"What happened?" Sam asked. His dry throat made the words scratchy and painful, barely a whisper in volume.

"What do you remember?"

"Waking up and everyone was there. Throwing up," Sam said. "That's kinda it."

"We walked in on the demon dripping his blood into your mouth. Dad forced you to throw it up," Dean said. He stood up, plastering on a smile like he hadn't just told his little brother that a demon was making him into some sort of twisted vampire while he slept. "Your voice sounds terrible, Sammy. I'm gonna go get you some water. Think you could stomach any food?"

Sam shook his head.

Dean's smile faded, but he didn't push the matter. "Alright," he said. "Just stay here. I'll be right back."

Dean left, and Sam rolled his eyes. Just stay there? He felt like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe. He wasn't going anywhere. At least, not anytime soon.

And demon blood? The thought of it made his empty stomach churn in disgust, but the lingering taste of it on his tongue left him craving more.

When he thought about it, last night was the first in as long as he could remember that he didn't dream of Hell. His sleep wasn't filled with hyper-realistic pain and screams. Instead, it was blank. A dreamless sleep that was as peaceful as he felt in years.

It couldn't be a coincidence, but he didn't want to think of the implications that correlation brought with it. With the dull throb in the back of his head starting to grow, he didn't want to think at all.

Dean returned with a glass of icy water, which did little to quench Sam's thirst. His thirst for something far different. Something taboo. A forbidden fruit to his family, and all hunters.

His mind poured out an endless stream of alternative names for it, but demon blood was demon blood and the answer he couldn't find was for a different question: what did it all mean?

"Any better?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded. The water helped a little bit, but he couldn't stop feeling like he was just putting corks in the holes of a dam. They wouldn't last forever, and they couldn't prevent the inevitable break forever.

"Dad?" Sam asked.

"Upstairs with Bobby. They're looking for answers and a solution to… whatever this is. Until then, we're stuck here, where no demon is going to reach us," Dean said. "Why didn't you tell me that you and Bobby built this place? It's like every hunter's dream to have a fortress against the supernatural."

"Never came up." He didn't feel much like talking, but conversations with Dean always proved to be decent distractions. For a short time, at least.

"Didn't feel like sharing it with your big brother?" Dean asked.

"It was for emergencies, not fun."

"Yeah, you two went all out with it, huh?"

"I guess."

After a minute of silence, Dean started talking. Just talking without aim or purpose. He recounted a few hunts that he went on with Dad over the past three years in excruciating detail. Sam isn't sure how much of it is Dean's memories, and how much of it is Dean's tendency to embellish hunting stories with a bit of his own flare.

He talked about ghosts—the vengeful and the peacefully annoying—the most as they made up a majority of those hunts. That had always been the case. It took one wrongful death, one attachment, to create a ghost.

Once, back when they were younger, Dean might have added in details about the ways the younger women they helped thanked him for saving their lives. Details that Sam never wanted to hear. But he stopped talking about those details when Sam was fifteen, and for good reason.

While Sam had improved a lot in what set off flashbacks, there were some things that he believed he might never recover from enough to face.

Dean talked about a handful of werewolf cases, then the rare exorcism case.

He didn't voice it aloud, but Sam knew that he left the fact that most of the possessed died after an exorcism unspoken. Demons tended to ride their vessels too hard, and humans couldn't survive the extent of injuries a demon could force them to live through once the demon left.

"What are we going to do?" Sam asked, cutting off Dean in the middle of another story.

It was an abrupt change of topic, but Dean didn't need clarification as to what Sam meant.

"Let Dad and Bobby take care of it. If the demon is after _you_ , then you're safer staying here."

"They can't kill a demon," Sam said. He slumped back down on the cot, the slight relief he'd gotten from the water fading.

"Well, Dad thinks he knows of something that can," Dean said. "Dude, are you feeling okay?"

Sam shook his head.

"What's wrong?" Dean pressed the back of his hand against Sam's forehead. "No fever."

"I don't… I don't know. I just feel _wrong._ My head is killing me." Even the dim lighting of the panic room started to seem blindingly bright as the dull throb in Sam's head morphed into a jackhammer splitting his brain apart.

"You want some painkillers?"

Sam nodded. Barely. The slightest motions felt like he was rattling his brain around against the inside of his skull.

The lights were turned off along with the radio just before Sam heard the door creak open. Although the room wasn't completely dark, the lessened light already took some of the edge off his headache.

Dean made record time in getting and pressing a couple of pills into Sam's palm.

Sam closed his eyes and hoped that sleep would pull him away from the pain. If it could get him away from the feeling that there was something inside him trying to claw its way out, that would be great, too.

"Yeah, just get some rest, Sammy," Dean said. "You'll feel better."

With his mind quiet and free from the demon's voice for the first time in years, along with his brother watching over him, Sam believed Dean. Despite how shitty he felt, he believed that it would get better.

If he could just get some rest first.

* * *

Dean lied.

It was nothing new to him. Hunting often required a certain amount of lies and deception. But he'd lied to _Sam_ , and that never sat right with him.

He'd told Sam that he'd feel better, just to get some rest.

Well, Sam had slept all night, and Dean even got some sleep once John and Bobby helped him set up a makeshift bed on the floor. It was a mess of pillows and blankets, but it was more comfortable than some of the other places he'd slept in over the years.

But his comfort wasn't the priority, Sam's was. Sam, who had become restless during the night, now alternated between writhing on the cot, and lying completely still. When he noticed the sheen of sweat on Sam's forehead, he'd pulled the blankets off him. After Sam started trembling with whole body shivers, Dean covered him up again with the blankets and settled for grabbing a bucket of water and a rag for wiping the sweat away.

No matter what he did, it didn't feel like enough. Sam was miserable, and Dean didn't understand why. He was just left to sit and help however he thought he could, but he didn't think he was helping at all.

Dean pressed the back of his hand against Sam's forehead once more. His skin was clammy, but it wasn't radiating heat like he had a fever.

John came down with some sandwiches for lunch, and Dean couldn't remember having breakfast that morning. Not when Sam had deteriorated so much from the day before.

"Any change?"

Dean shrugged. "He's not getting better, but he hasn't really woken up either. He doesn't have a fever, but he's still sweating and trembling."

"He's gonna end up dehydrated at this rate," John said. "And malnourished, as if he wasn't already."

"What do we do?"

John sighed and ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. "Try to get some water in him if you can for now. We'll work from there."

"What if he needs a hospital? He looks like shit."

"Then, we'll take him to the hospital. The health system here has his information already since he was in that therapy program," John said. "I'd like to avoid that since it's safer to keep him here."

Dean nodded. Even if the system knew Sam, he didn't want to drag him away from the protection of the panic room.

"Hey, Dad, what did Ellen mean when she said she thought she'd never see you again?" Dean asked.

"Dean…"

"No, you always hide stuff from us, but it hasn't exactly been turning out well, has it?" Dean asked. "Look at Sam. If you knew the demon might have been after him since he was a baby, why did you never tell us?"

"That's not the kind of thing you tell children," John said. "I thought that I would be able to hunt him down before he had the chance to get to Sam."

"Well, you didn't."

"I know. I'm trying to make up for that now." John took a deep breath. "Ellen's husband, Bill, was a hunter, and I was on his last hunt with him."

"What happened?"

"It was a demon, and it got Bill. I couldn't do anything to save him, and I didn't even exorcise the bastard. It vanished before I got the chance. I did what I could. Gave him a hunter's funeral, gave Ellen the news and his wedding ring, and left."

"I'm sorry," Dean said.

He shouldn't have asked, but he wasn't expecting that to be John's story. Maybe there were some things that John could keep to himself, but the problem was that he never seemed able to tell the difference between what can be kept secret and what he needed to share with at least Dean.

John shrugged and left shortly after. Dean took one of the sandwiches that he left behind. He wasn't hungry, but he knew he had to eat something.

If only he could get Sam to do the same.

* * *

Hours later, both John and Bobby came into the panic room to check up on Sam. Dean suspected their timing had to do with Sam waking up, completely unaware of his surroundings and screaming at things that Dean couldn't see. With the way that Sam tensed up and tossed around, there were a few times that he feared Sam was having a seizure.

Once more, and he would've gone to get John and Bobby and demand they take Sam to the hospital.

Sam was getting progressively worse, and Dean was glad for his dad and Bobby to be there now. He was running out of ideas.

Sam tossed his head around, wide eyes looking in all directions, but clearly not seeing what was there in reality. What he _was_ seeing, well, Dean had no ideas there either.

"So, he's still getting worse," Bobby said.

Dean nodded. The past hours became increasingly more terrifying as Sam spiraled farther away from sanity. He'd managed to get Sam to take a few sips of water, but not nearly enough.

"Please tell me you've come up with _something_ ," Dean said. There was nothing worse than seeing Sam in pain and not being able to do anything about it.

"I don't think it's anything you're gonna like, but I did a little research on Sam's symptoms," Bobby said.

"And?"

"Well, a lot of them line up with withdrawal."

Dean's mind went blank. Withdrawal? That required drug use, didn't it? Sam wasn't… He'd never…

But Dean also realized that he didn't know Sam as well as he used to. Not anymore. There were a lot of lectures that Sam needed to hear, but Dean knew that no words would be getting through to him at the moment.

"But what?" Dean asked. "How?"

Bobby took a deep breath and shared a glance with John. "Well, it's not unheard of for some witches to try drinking demon blood, if they're powerful enough to get some. A hunter I know took out a witch like that a while back. It was easy for him because, by the time he found her, she was just shaking and so far out of her mind that she couldn't tell he was there. All she cared about was getting more."

Dean felt his heart sink into the gaping pit where his stomach used to be, becoming a block of ice. "That bastard got Sammy addicted to _demon blood_?"

"Looks like it."

"What do we do?"

"We do what we can, and we hope that he survives it."

"What?" Dean asked. "You mean…?"

Bobby nodded. "In the few instances that I know of involving drinking demon blood, the user never survived."

"Well, that's because they were witches, right?" Dean asked. "They were killed by hunters. That's not gonna happen to Sam, I won't let it."

"I'm gonna try talking to some people I know. Healers of the supernatural variety. Something like this is rare, but if anyone has answers, it'll be them."

Bobby left, and there were only Winchesters in the panic room.

"Dad… how did this happen? We were supposed to watch out for him."

John didn't answer. Instead, he stood silently for a few long minutes, just watching Sam, who had settled down again for the moment.

Then, he was gone, too, and Dean was left alone with Sam. He fought against the nausea rising at the thought that the demon had gotten Sam addicted to something as vile as demon blood. How long had he been dripping it into Sam's mouth while he slept, especially since Sam admitted that he kinda liked the taste?

He pushed down his own thoughts and feelings about the situation. He locked them away so deep inside himself, he might never reach them again. Sam didn't need him drowning in that shit. He needed Dean focused and clear-headed.

And Dean would be anything that Sam needed. He wasn't ready to say goodbye to his brother.

He never would be.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** If witches served demons, I guess it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think that some tried drinking demon blood/some demons convinced them to drink it. Also, John knows that Sam is human thanks to Missouri from the last installment (Becoming Human). He knows that he's partially at fault for keeping secrets, and he always tried to save Sam before anything else.

Thank you to everyone for the reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! They mean the world to me.


	8. The Mind Betrays

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warning:** Implications of a sexual nature.

* * *

Fingertips ghosted across his cheeks and trailed down his jawline, feather-light touches that left once they reached his chin, but their path lingered on his skin as though they were still there.

Sam opened his eyes at the touch and found Liu hovering over him. "You're dead," Sam said, his words sounded slurred to his own ears. "I killed you."

"Yet here I am," he said.

He sat on the edge of the cot Sam was on, and Sam struggled to move, but couldn't. His wrists were bound by zip ties, and his ankles were bound by rope. With the panic room's ceiling fan sluggishly spinning above him, almost hypnotizing, he knew that it was impossible for Liu to be there. Not only was he dead, but Sam's wrists were bound this way by Jerry and Rich, not Liu. If he thought hard enough, he knew the truth was that his wrists and ankles shouldn't be bound at all. Not at Bobby's.

While his mind also knew that the specter of Liu that taunted him couldn't be real either, the words were as real as the feeling of the phantom bindings that kept him still.

He did what had become instinct to him. He used his power to burn away the ghost of Liu, but the flames were smaller and weaker than what he'd grown used to. He felt their burn as if they licked at his skin, but Liu seemed unaffected. The flames passed through him, and he leaned in closer to Sam. Close enough that Sam felt his breath against his skin.

"I should have taken a turn first," he said. "After you were drugged up, so you couldn't kill me, of course. Find out what it was that my clients couldn't seem to get enough of."

He put his hands on Sam's shoulders and held him down. Sam struggled against his grip and shook his head back and forth. Back and forth.

"Get off. Get off." He repeated those same two words until his already dry throat was raw. Only then did his mantra change to "You're dead. You're dead."

There were words said in another voice, neither his nor Liu's, that he couldn't comprehend. They were said too far away, a whisper and nothing more. The tone that the speaker used was soothing, at least, and Sam stopped his own mantra in favor of listening to the white noise whispers.

The bindings that kept him still lifted and the air felt less oppressive as Liu's presence faded. When he looked, there was no longer a zip tie on his wrists or ropes around his ankles. The pressure of Liu's hands on his shoulders was gone, and he took a deep, shaky breath trying to convince himself that none of it had been there in the first place. The only real things were the hot trails of tears running down his face that he scrubbed away with the backs of his hands.

He was left alone in the room with the soft words of a distant voice, and he took the opportunity to close his eyes, if only for a moment's rest.

* * *

"You thought you could get rid of me by running back to daddy and big brother?"

Sam snapped his eyes open, seeing only the iron wall the cot was pressed against. He rolled over and scanned the room for the yellow eyed demon, but other than him and Dean (with his chin nearly touching his chest as his head dipped down in his sleep), the room was empty.

Dean's head raised up like someone had grabbed the back of it and pulled, an unnerving and unnatural sight. His brother should never look so puppet-like. When he opened his eyes, his visage became more haunting once Sam caught sight of their sickly yellow color.

"I thought that you knew I would always be in your head, Sammy," he said. It was Dean's mouth forming the words, but his voiced was laced with something unnatural. Something purely demonic and evil. "A place like this can't keep a thing like _me_ back."

"No. No, no, no, no, no," Sam said.

While his skin burned beneath a layer of sweat, the demon's words filled him with ice. He built this room with Bobby fully intending that it would keep _all_ demons away. How powerful would he have to be to make it through the consecrated iron walls? And not to mention the number of protections that Bobby had hidden around the rest of his house and on the outskirts of his property.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, but they were pried open by an unseen force in time for him to watch Dean's lips curl into a twisted smile.

"What's the matter, Sammy?" he asked. "Regretting your choice of running back to big brother?"

"I didn't choose to," Sam whispered. "I didn't choose any of this."

Possessed Dean put his hand on Sam's chest, directly above his heart. "It's not about choice," he said. "It's about blood. It's _always_ been about blood."

"You fed me your blood while I slept," Sam said. "Why?"

"You enjoyed it. Look what you've been reduced to without it. Pathetic."

"Your fault."

"I can't force you to enjoy something," he said. "That decision is all yours. Your mouth is watering for it even now, isn't it? You know that you can't get enough, even if you never knew that you were drinking blood. Ever since you've tasted it on your tongue the other night, you've been both consciously and unconsciously hooked."

"You're wrong."

The demon rolled up one of Dean's sleeves and grabbed a knife from the stash of weapons in the room. He pressed the blade against the exposed skin of Dean's arm with just enough pressure for blood to start spilling out of a thin cut.

And Sam watched each drop swell up and slip off Dean's arm to the floor.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The demon moved to make the cut deeper, and it clicked in Sam's head that the flesh being mutilated belonged to _Dean_. He gripped the knife with his mind and threw it across the room.

"Leave him out of this," Sam said. "Get out of him."

He struggled against the invisible forces that kept him pinned down with renewed vigor, not caring that some of his joints felt like they were on the verge of dislocating.

"Get out of him!" Sam yelled. "Get out! Get out! Get out!"

The demon smirked, blinked, and when his eyes were open again, the yellow was gone. The force keeping Sam's eyes open faded and well, but he still couldn't look away from Dean's wide eyes. They were their natural green, but they were weighed with a sadness that no demon could ever imitate.

Sam looked, but Dean's sleeve was not pushed up and there was no blood in the room. The only source of the metallic scent was the iron making up the walls of the room, and even that was close to being drowned out by the thick scent of coffee.

Dean's mouth moved, but Sam didn't hear the words. He stared at the dark bags underlining Dean's eyes and the stubble quickly growing into a beard.

He felt the energy being drained out of him until it took too much effort to keep his eyes open.

* * *

Dean handed off one final weapon from the panic room to Bobby with a long sigh.

"That the last of it?" he asked.

"Think so. I guess we were even less prepared for all of this than we thought, huh?"

"Last I checked, normal drug detoxes don't include spontaneous fires and flying weapons," Bobby said. "You sure you don't want me to take over watching him for a bit so you can get some rest?"

Dean shook his head and sunk back into his chair, the charred marks on Sam's blankets and the fire extinguisher within arm's reach both acting as painful reminders that this detox could kill Sam in more ways than one. "I have to do this," he said. "Thanks, though."

"Dean, you're gonna wear yourself out. You need some rest, too."

"I can't, Bobby," Dean said. He cleared his throat, not liking how choked his words sounded with the tangible chunk of guilt blocking his vocal cords. "Look at him. _I_ did this. I neglected him for one night, and it's spiraled into this shit-storm."

"You couldn't have known. Not then, not now."

"Maybe not, but I don't think I've really been helping either."

"Dean…"

"Just let me do something right for once. Please."

He heard Bobby sigh, but it was followed by the sound of retreating footsteps and the closing of the panic room door. While Sam was at peace for the moment, that wasn't guaranteed to last. Dean wasn't sure he wanted to know what Sam was seeing, because it certainly wasn't anything real.

With all the things Sam said in his out-of-his-mind state, Dean could venture a few guesses as to what Sam saw—what Sam was reliving—but none of them were things he liked thinking about.

He let his shoulders slump down, remembering the wild look in Sam's eyes when he tried to hold him down to keep him from hurting himself. He remembered the fear and the pleading to get off him that was followed by the heat of fire that wasn't there a second earlier. (He was lucky his dad and Bobby heard the commotion and came running.)

Yeah, Dean had a few good guesses about what Sam saw, and each of them made his stomach churn with burning bile.

* * *

His dad came down later. It might have been the same day, or it might have been a new day. Keeping track of time was difficult in the panic room. No light got in, and no clocks adorned any surfaces. It felt like its own world, but in that world time moved slowly. Too slowly.

Dean wanted this nightmare to end already.

John pressed a mug of steaming coffee into his hands with the unspoken command to drink it, not that the command was needed. Dean was running on fumes of fumes, amazed that he was lucid in any capacity with his lack of sleep.

"Any change?"

"No more floating or burning objects, if that's what you're asking."

"That's a start," John said.

"I managed to get some water into him now and then, though I'm not sure it's enough to keep dehydration away."

"We'll have to hope it is," John said. "After seeing his fits, taking him to a hospital really isn't an option. We'd never be able to explain that he's psychic."

Dean nodded. He knew that, of course, but he still held on hope that they would spirit Sam away to somewhere that would be better equipped to handle him. But what kind of hospital would be prepared to deal with a psychic detoxing from demon blood?

No, they'd all end up in the loony bin if they sought out professional help for Sam.

"How much longer do you think it'll last?" Dean asked.

"From what Bobby could find, the time it takes to detox depends on the drug."

"So, we basically have no idea."

"No, not for something like this," John said. "But believe me, I wish we did."

"We're world-class idiots, aren't we, Dad?"

John laughed a bit, but it was under his breath, humorless, and died down to a somber smile in less than a second. "I guess so."

"How could we let it get this bad? Three years, and we never noticed how much he was struggling with everything."

"We weren't looking," John said. "We thought he was safe at Bobby's, and we were trying to find the demon."

Dean took a deep breath. Coffee helped, but he was almost at his limits. While Sam had calmed down for now, he had no way of knowing if this was the end of the worst part of the detox, or if they were simply in the eye of the storm. "Are you here to try and take over for me like Bobby?"

"Not quite," John said. He put his hand on Dean's shoulder, and it was then that Dean looked and realized that his dad had his pack slung over his shoulder. "I have a few leads to check out on The Colt."

"You're _leaving_?" Dean asked.

"I trust that you and Bobby will take care of things here."

"But Sam—"

"Sam needs you," John said, interrupting him. "It was always you he wanted when he was hurt or sick, and you know I've never been good at dealing with him other than when it came to physical wounds."

"What if something happens?"

"Then, I'm trusting you to take care of it. Bobby will be here, too," John said. "Besides, I'm sure you want the demon dead just as much as I do. The faster I can find The Colt, the faster we can get this all taken care of."

Dean nodded. "Just please find _something._ We need a win here."

John squeezed his shoulder. "Watch out for Sammy while I'm gone."

That brought a grin to Dean's weary face. "You know I will."

"Yeah," John said. "I know."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sam is hallucinating, John is off to start hunting The Colt, and Dean is falling apart. Things are looking pretty good for the Winchesters, clearly.

Thank you for the reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! They always make my day and keep me going.


	9. A Moment's Peace

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural. I'm also not in any way shape or form a medical professional. All information regarding drug withdrawal is courtesy of internet searches.

* * *

Sam woke up feeling different. Better, but worse at the same time. He felt dried up, like he'd been left in the sun for weeks. He was soaked in sweat and uncomfortable with the slight chill it brought with it when touched by the air.

His body was a bag of contradicting sensations and emotions. Equal parts hot and cold. Equal parts energetic and exhausted.

Equal parts alive and dead.

It was weird how he could feel so awful for so long, and then wake up one morning and know without a doubt that the worst of what ailed him had passed.

His eyes were too heavy to open, but he wanted nothing more than to open them. With a groan and a tremendous amount of effort, he pried them open to slivers.

"Sammy?"

It was Dean. Of course, it was Dean.

"Sammy, you with me? You seeing _me_?"

"Think so?"

Sam could barely make out Dean's outline hovering over him, but there were two Deans, and he was pretty sure that wasn't right. After a few blinks, the Deans formed into one solid person: Dean, his big brother.

"Well, that's the first coherent answer I've gotten from you in, like, a week," Dean said. "I'll take what I can get."

"A week?"

He turned his head and watched as Dean sat back down and slumped in his chair. To say he looked like shit was an understatement. Sam couldn't remember the last time Dean looked that bad. The closest he could think of was when Dean got hit with pneumonia during his high school days. For weeks afterward, he looked too pale, his skin nearly transparent, and tired all the time.

Dean nodded. "Yeah. You've been really out of it, and it's been a bitch trying to keep you hydrated. How much do you remember?"

Dean shoved a glass of water at him, and held onto it once Sam's hands proved too unsteady to trust with it fully. Sam didn't realize how much he needed the water until it trickled down his desert of a throat.

"I don't know. I saw some things, but I knew that they couldn't be there. Not really."

"What did you see?"

Sam pursed his lips into a thin line, the words dying in his throat as he thought over the glimpses of memories he had of his hallucinations. "I, uh…"

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Dean said.

Sam heard what Dean left unsaid, that he wished he would tell him what he saw. The internal debate was fierce, but after three years of spotty communication, maybe Dean needed this. He needed to be reminded that they still had a bond. That there was still trust between them.

Sam took a deep, shaky breath. "I saw Liu, and I saw the demon. Jerry and Rich, but just for a little bit. I think I saw Mom?"

 _She looked just like she did in the few pictures that his dad kept from the fire. Long blonde curls cascaded past her shoulders and her small smile made her kind face look that much warmer. She was all gentle curves where John had been hard edges, and Sam saw how they would have balanced each other out._

 _But that smile was directed at Dean, curled in a mound of blankets and fast asleep. It faded when she looked at Sam._

" _My baby," she said. She draped her arm across her abdomen, and when she let it fall to the side, a streak of red marred her snowy white nightgown. "What have you done with my baby?"_

" _Mom, it's me."_

 _She shook her head. "Sammy would never drink_ demon blood. _"_

" _I never meant to," Sam said. "I'm so sorry, but I swear it wasn't my choice."_

 _She shook her head, and looked back at Dean. The disgust on her face was replaced with love that Sam had never seen anyone direct at_ him _. Not that he couldn't understand why now that he knew what sort of monster had been hiding itself within him. She took a few steps and crouched next to Dean, running one hand through his short hair. "You've been tainted and twisted into something inhuman," she said. "I… I only have one son."_

 _And Sam knew it wasn't him._

When he tried to elaborate on his hallucinations, he came up blank. If he told Dean the details, it made them too real. At least, in his silence, he could block out the memories. He could try to fool himself into believing that it had all been a dark, dreamless sleep that he spent the week stuck in and nothing else.

"But mostly Liu and the demon," he said. "I knew that none of it could be real, but…"

He trailed off, and couldn't find anymore words to pick back up with.

Dean, thankfully, got the hint that Sam was done sharing for the moment. "If you want to talk about it later…"

"Yeah, I know, Dean."

"So, how do you feel?" Dean asked. "I mean, you're answering questions and all that. Understanding what's going on around you."

"I don't know," Sam said. "I feel gross and tired, but there's part of me that realizes that the way I feel now is better than how I felt before, even if how I feel now is still not great."

"Think you could stomach something like soup? Or even just more water?"

Sam shrugged. "No. I don't know."

"Are you willing to try?"

"Not really," he said.

When he thought about food, he felt his stomach twist and slosh, full of acid. Despite the fact that he'd just spent a week or so in bed, he didn't have the energy to get up. Hell, he didn't have the energy to do as much as sit up.

"C'mon, just some broth, Sam," Dean said. "Something light. You're never going to feel better if you're not getting food and water in you."

Sam heard his mother's words echo in his head (and he knew it wasn't his real mother that spoke to him, but that couldn't take the pain away). She had only one son. She had only Dean, and he'd be lying if he said that he never wondered if his dad felt that way sometimes, too.

He was a poison to his own family. When he looked at Dean's condition, that was reaffirmed. He saw the lack of life in his brother, the strain that came from having to take care of him for being stupid enough to let a demon get him hooked on _demon blood_ of all things.

It wasn't the first time that he wanted to close his eyes and hope that they never opened again. He used to feel like that far too often after being taken from his motel room all those years ago. While that feeling lost its intensity with time, that didn't stop it from returning full-force when he didn't expect it.

He nodded at Dean, though, because he saw how much Dean needed him to get something in his stomach. It might be the last thing he felt up to (on a very long list of last things he felt up to doing), but he didn't want Dean to wear himself out more than he already had.

The bright grin that spread across Dean's face was enough to tell him that it was the right choice.

"I'll be right back, Sammy," he said.

He moved with purpose. He moved with an energy that Sam wouldn't have guessed he had after spending a week handling a detoxing Sam. With what little Sam remembered, he wondered what he unintentionally put Dean through over that week.

It didn't take long for Dean to return with two steaming coffee mugs. He handed one filled with chicken broth to Sam, and kept the other for himself. It was when Sam struggled to sit up enough that Dean had to help him that he realized how weak he'd grown. Sure, he felt it before, but having the physical confirmation made it too real.

Maybe he should have asked for tea instead, but the broth _did_ help settle his stomach. It made him aware of how hungry he was, even if his true appetite craved something else. Something thick and red and foul.

Sam noticed that, as he was being watched, the grin never fell from Dean's face. One thing he was thankful for was Dean's ability to read him when he shot him a what-are-you-staring-at look.

"It's just been a long week, Sammy," he said. "I'll take any win I can get right now."

That? That was something Sam could agree with. He'd take any win they could get, too.

After nearly a year of not seeing Dean at all, and two years before that of irregular visits, it felt like they fell right back into their old patterns as if no time passed at all.

It was a small thing, but it made Sam feel better.

* * *

Dean took a deep breath. The lack of care he'd given his body lately was starting to take its toll. He should call his dad and let him know that the worst of it seemed to have passed. Sam was coherent and got some sustenance in him, even if it was just broth.

There were a lot of things he should do. He should try and coerce Sam into getting up and taking a shower, but bathroom breaks seemed to do enough of a toll on his constantly depleted energy store (although Dean would never deny that they were easier with a tired Sam than with an out-of-his-fucking-mind Sam). He should join in on the research for The Colt. He should join in on the research for the demon. He should find out what he could do to help Sam deal with the lingering, less physical side-effects of withdrawal.

He should. He should. He should.

Instead, he settled in his makeshift bed next to Sam's cot, where he'd be close enough if Sam needed him. Where he could hear the deep, even breaths that signaled Sam had fallen into a peaceful sleep. There were a lot of things that he should do, but they could all wait because Sam survived. It'd been a long week for both of them—Sam showing some of the most dangerous withdrawal symptoms from what Bobby scrounged up online—but Sam made it through the worst of it from what Dean could tell.

They would have to talk about it sometime. The fact that Sam ran off on his own to hunt down traffickers. The fact that Sam had been using his powers so avidly. The fact that Sam had unknowingly gotten addicted to something as vile and dangerous as demon blood.

Dean fell asleep knowing that they now had time to deal with all of those things on his mental list. He fell asleep knowing that his brother was right next to him and, hopefully, was out of immediate danger.

He had his family. He could deal with everything else later.

* * *

Sam felt a little better the next time he woke up, although he couldn't deny that he still felt like something that had been fished up from the sewer. And from what he could tell, he smelled like it, too. When was the last time he took a shower?

His joints cracked and groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. While he tried to be quiet and not disturb Dean in his little nest, he couldn't hold back the involuntary groans that came with stretching his stiff muscles. His head really felt like it was in the clouds, and he swayed before Dean hopped up and gripped his elbow to steady him.

"Didn't mean to wake you," Sam said, letting Dean hover around him as he headed towards the bathroom.

"Well, I wish it was the first thing you did," Dean said. "It's okay to not be at one-hundred percent yet, Sam."

"Believe me," Sam said, winded after one flight of stairs. "I know I'm not doing great, but I really need a shower."

Dean laughed and pat his back gently enough to avoid toppling him over. "Yeah. You reek, dude."

* * *

The shower was quick, Sam feeling more like he was going to fall over with each second that passed. He couldn't see how terrible he looked in the steamed mirror, but once he felt something wet under his fingernails, he realized that he'd been absentmindedly scratching his chest to the point of breaking open the skin.

They were small scratches, barely noteworthy. After a minute with a towel pressed against them, they remained red and angry, but the slight bleeding had stopped.

Dean knocked at the door. "You alright in there, Sam?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

" _I only have one son."_

Out of all the taunts and threats spewed at him from Liu, the demon, and the other ghosts he created over that week, it was that single sentence from his mom that cut the deepest. It made him feel the corruption of his soul. It made him feel just how alienated he was from the rest of the world now.

Once he realized he'd been scratching at his chest again, he forced himself to stop. When Liu had him on drugs in the nightclub, he ended up giving himself similar marks. Like he had at that time, he felt like something was trapped just beneath the surface of his skin, and if he could scratch deep enough…

Dean knocked again, harder this time. "Seriously, Sammy," he said. "You need some help or something?"

"No. No, I'm fine. I'll be out in a minute."

Sam dressed and let Dean herd him to one of the rickety wooden chairs at Bobby's kitchen table, where Bobby sat and poured over a mess of newspaper clippings, nodding his greeting to both of them.

"Good to see you up," Bobby said.

Sam shrugged, but gave a small nod after.

"Think you could handle more than broth this time?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged and bounced his leg on the ball of his foot. Before, he felt like he had no energy. Now, he felt like he had too much.

Once again, he believed that his body was a bag of contradictions.

"Dad?" he asked.

"He found some leads on The Colt that he's following," Dean said.

Sam nodded. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to face his dad. He must be disappointed in the choices that he made, and he must be furious that Sam was following a demon's lead.

No, he was more than happy to avoid having to face John for the moment. He didn't want to know what lecture he'd be given. He didn't want to face his father's anger, even if that anger couldn't match how mad he was with himself.

Dean heated up a can of soup and put a bowl of it in front of Sam.

"What? None for me?" Bobby asked, a hint of humor in his tone.

"You can get your own, old man."

Their exchange was all in jest, but something about it sparked rage inside Sam. Before he could stop himself, he spat out, "What? I can't get my own, too?"

"I never said that, Sam," Dean said.

"You think I'm weak don't you?" Sam asked. "You feel like you have to baby me."

"Sam, you just went through a demon blood detox, and you admitted that you weren't feeling that great in the first place. Why are you arguing about this? Why does it even matter?"

Sam didn't have those answers. He had an inexplicable rage built up inside him, and Dean was the closest target for it. Anger clouded his vision, and he couldn't figure out if he had any right to be arguing about this. If there was any point to it. But he couldn't stop himself.

"I've made it three years without you hovering over me, there's no need for you to start it again now," Sam said.

What little appetite he had vanished, and he hobbled up to the room that had been his since he started living at Bobby's, closing the door behind him and locked it.

He collapsed on his bed, and his will to fight for the sake of fighting drained out alongside his energy.

As expected, Dean was knocking on the door within seconds of him closing it. "Sam?"

When Sam didn't respond, Dean knocked again. "Sam, this isn't you. Bobby did a lot of research about withdrawal and detoxing. You might be doing better, but you still have a long way to go. You're done with the crash phase, but that's not the only one. Irritability. Exhaustion. Mood swings. Those are all normal, okay?"

Sam kept his silence. He was being petulant. And Dean didn't deserve it, but damn, he couldn't stop himself. He knew he was being selfish. He was being an unbearable pain in the ass.

Dean could pick the lock and let himself in if he wanted to, but Sam couldn't hear him even trying.

Dean knocked some more. "Sam? Are you listening to me?"

It took too much effort to get to his feet again, but Sam did it. He dragged one foot in front of the other and leaned against the wall next to the door when he unlocked it.

That was all the invitation that Dean needed before he was through the door. Sam thought he might fall over, or at the very least slide down to the ground once his legs decided they'd had enough.

But he didn't have to worry about falling with Dean there. He might be taller now, but when Dean pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, he felt small.

"We can get through this, Sammy," he said. "You'll be just fine."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The worst of the withdrawal is over, but now they still have the source to deal with. John is trying, but is there anyone else with some tricks up their sleeves?

Thank you for the reads, reviews, follows, and favorites!


	10. Sam's Solution

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Another day and night spent in the panic room, and Sam had learned to bite his tongue when he felt his irritability rising. He learned that the best way to deal with it was to ask Dean for some time alone so that no one would be around for him to lash out at.

Not that Dean seemed to care. He let Sam hurl anything he had at him, and Sam suspected that Dean saw it as a punishment for himself, as if part of Sam's predicament had been his fault. Sam didn't see it that way, but nobody could drown themselves in undeserved guilt better than a Winchester.

As frustrating as it was to tire so quickly, Sam was sick of lying around. He needed to help in dealing with the demon, and that led him to kneeling on the floor of his room on Bobby's second floor and digging through a box he kept in the corner of his closet so he could pile bulky journals with pages that no longer laid flat due to the amount of times they'd been flipped in Dean's arms.

"What the hell is all this, Sam?" he asked.

"I did some research of my own on ways to handle demons," he said. "I had plenty of time for it in the years I lived with Bobby."

"What made you decide to switch from trying to get rid of demons to working with one?"

Sam threw a glance over his shoulder at Dean, then turned his focus back to the half-empty box in front of him. He didn't need to see Dean's face when he gave a response. He didn't want to see it.

"When the voice in your head talks enough, eventually you start to listen," he said. "Eventually, you start to believe it."

"What? What does that mean, Sam?" Dean asked. "Was that bastard hanging around in your head even before you left?"

Sam nodded, and found himself pulled to his feet and turned to face Dean. Dean's eyes searched his face.

"How long?"

"I think it started when we were staying with Pastor Jim."

Like the energy had been drained from him, Dean's hands fell from their perches on Sam's shoulders. He faced away from Sam, then turned to face him again and ran his hand through his hair.

"That long?"

Sam shrugged.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Sam shrugged again. "I didn't know what to think of it at first, and he talked about my powers a lot. And about breaking to be rebuilt stronger. I couldn't exactly tell you and expect you to not grill me over why he was visiting my dreams. Then, it stopped for a while when you guys found out. Remember the night I locked myself in the bathroom because my memories of what happened came back?"

"Not a night I'll be forgetting any time soon."

"Well, after that, you guys wouldn't let me sleep without being full of sleeping pill so that he couldn't visit my sleep."

"When did he start showing up again?" Dean asked. With the way that Dean's voice nearly cracked, Sam knew that his brother was taking every word he said as a personal failure.

"After you guys found out about my powers and I ran. I didn't have enough money for the Greyhound bus, but the employee at the station gave me one anyway."

"What does that have to do with the demon?"

"I saw her eyes turn yellow eyes for a second. I thought I was losing my mind at first—as if it wasn't already lost—but now I'm guessing that the demon wanted me separated from you and Dad."

They stood in silence for a while. Sam had taken to staring at the floor and his own feet. Dean started pacing across the length of the room.

"I wish you'd told me," Dean said.

"I'm sorry."

An apology was all Sam had to offer. His reasons for not telling Dean made sense to him then, and they still did now. He could almost feel Dean blaming himself for it, like he had lost Sam's trust somewhere along the way and _that_ was why he didn't say anything.

Telling Dean that he would make the same choices again if given the chance wouldn't help anybody.

Dean cleared his throat. "So, all of these?" he asked, lifting the stack of journals he held.

"Are my research notes."

"No shit? Dude, something here has to be useful, right?"

"Plenty is, but not all of it was attainable at the time I did the research," Sam said. "Turns out demons have a vested interest in guarding things that could kill them."

"That's to be expected, I guess," Dean said. "C'mon, let's sort through this mess in the panic room. You can fill me in on demon killing."

* * *

Sam took pages inserted in the journals and laid them out on the desk in the panic room. An hour later, he'd explained the information he'd scrounged up to Dean. Unfortunately, he could tell that it wasn't clicking for him yet.

"How did you even start finding any of this? I couldn't find any shit that was worthwhile when I started looking."

"It was an accident," Sam said. "Another hunter called Bobby for some help in researching a hunt. It turned out that he found himself facing one of the lesser Persian gods. When I was helping find ways to kill it, I just stumbled upon this and I dug deeper and deeper until I knew everything about it I could find."

"How do you even pronounce this?" Dean asked.

"Well, it translates out to 'the emerald-studded sword'," Sam said. "I don't think we need to know the proper pronunciation for it. We just need to get it and swing it."

"Are you sure it will work?"

"There's no way to be positive, but the stories I found all mentioned using it to cull demons who were disguised as humans. While the stories don't say it outright, I'm guessing that implies that the sword can kill a demon as long as it's in a vessel."

"I'm guessing that kills the vessel, too," Dean said.

"Yes," Sam said, "but we might have to make that sacrifice if it means getting the demon out of the picture once and for all."

"We don't have to make any decisions right now."

Sam nodded. "Anyway, the sword traded hands a lot. You know, a hunter trains another hunter and passes the sword along when they die kind of thing. Or it gets stolen and disappears. It disappeared for a while, but I picked up its trail again when I found an article about a wicked man having been cut down by an ornate sword decorated with emeralds. I figured there wasn't anything else it could be, and the best part was that the hunter used it in front of witnesses, so I found his name."

"And you're sure you know where it is?" Dean asked.

"Again, about as sure as I can be. The hunter had a house that he left abandoned when he died. Luckily, no one seems to want it and it's stayed abandoned."

"We don't have that kind of luck," Dean said. "What's the catch?"

Sam sighed. "There are signs that the place is surrounded by demons. I bet they were put on guard duty and told to rip apart anyone who walked off the property with that sword."

"So, they can't get near it themselves?"

"Doesn't look like it," Sam said. He looked around the panic room. "But I guess all hunters have their ways to keep demons out."

"I wish Dad was here to see all this," Dean said. "You found what none of us could. Even Dad is still working on _possible_ leads."

Sam's excitement at sharing his work faded. "It was just something I stumbled on," he said. "It was curiosity and wishful thinking, and it still doesn't mean anything since we don't have a way to get the sword without being immediately killed by a small army of demons."

Dean clapped a hand on Sam's shoulder. "We'll figure something out."

Sam nodded and thought back to the rest of the journals in his box that he hadn't handed to Dean, where he _had_ figured something out for getting the sword. He never intended to use the information that he stored in them, not until that moment.

Sacrifices were necessary in their line of work sometimes, and Sam had sacrificed plenty of lives already for what he saw as the greater good.

" _I only have one son."_

* * *

"I wish you were here to see all the stuff that Sam's found over the years," Dean said, exiled from the panic room once more as per Sam's request. He wished that Sam would get it through his head that Dean was fine dealing with him when he started acting up. It wasn't his fault that he ended up addicted to demon blood; Dean should have been there for him all these years.

"Yeah, sounds like he's been busy," John said through the phone.

"Maybe you should come back and help us figure out how to get that sword out."

"I'm still checking out The Colt," John said. "I know Sam's worked hard, but there are a lot of chances that we'd be taking with placing all of our bets on one thing. I know The Colt was designed to kill any supernatural creature. That sword sounds like it _might_ be able to kill a demon, but only if that demon is occupying a vessel. What happens if they decide to leave the vessel behind the second they see us with that sword?"

"I don't know," Dean said. "But isn't it worth trying?"

"You two keep digging for now and take care of Sam's withdrawal while I finish with the remaining leads," John said. "Don't do anything until I get back, understood?"

"Yes, sir," Dean said.

John ended the call, and Dean sunk into Bobby's couch, grabbing the remote and flipping through the channels.

Bobby entered the house a few minutes later, wiping oil stains from his hands with an old rag. "Got kicked out again?"

Dean nodded.

"Well, at least he ain't practically seizing anymore. Or seeing things."

"I know, but I wish he'd let me help him."

"Believe me, that boy is more alive now than he was in all the time he lived here," Bobby said.

"Did he ever seem off or, I don't know, bothered while he lived here?" Dean asked.

"Of course, he did," Bobby said. "But after all he went through, I couldn't blame him."

"He told me that the demon was in his head," Dean said. "He told me that it was why he ended up leaving."

"What?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "I guess he got better at hiding things than we thought."

Bobby took a deep breath and tossed the oil-stained rag to the side. "I think there's a pot of coffee calling my name," he said.

"I think that it's a bottle of whiskey calling _my_ name," Dean said, "but coffee will have to do."

Bobby moved into the kitchen, and Dean heard the ancient coffee maker's protests as he started it.

While he craved the burn of alcohol, he didn't know if Sam still reacted poorly to the scent of it. With all his failures coming to light, the last thing he needed was to traumatize Sam even more.

* * *

" _Where are you hiding?"_

 _Sam stood in the middle of a field that stretched to infinity in all directions. Wind blew his hair and forced the knee-high grass to bow in waves. It was the sky that tipped him off the most that he was dreaming. The sky was light, but he saw nothing in it. No clouds. No sun, moon, or stars._

" _Come back to me, Sam."_

 _He knew that voice almost as well as he knew his own, and he scanned the field for a pair of yellow eyes that he couldn't find._

" _I know you liked the high."_

" _I didn't know that you were slipping your blood into my mouth while I slept," Sam said, his anger and disgust coating his words. "That's not liking something by choice."_

" _Even now, you're craving more," the demon said, ignoring Sam. "You may have gotten it out of your system, but your system is already hooked."_

 _Sam started walking, even if he didn't see anywhere to go._

" _You'll always be hooked."_

 _He tried to shake off the demon's words._

" _You'll always be an addict. A run-of-the-mill junkie seeking out his next hit."_

 _He walked faster._

" _You can hide, but I'll find you," the demon said._

 _Sam felt breath on his ear._

" _I'll always find you."_

Sam woke up in the panic room, finding Dean still asleep nearby. He rolled from side to side until he ended up staring at the ceiling on his back, waiting for his racing heart to calm down.

He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but it didn't feel sufficient. He felt the burn as his eyes begged to be closed again, but his mind was running a mile a minute and sleeping was last on its list of things to do.

He tried to listen to Dean's breathing and let it lull him to sleep like it had when he was a child. When all his problems could be washed away with a promise from his big brother.

Once it was clear that sleep would be eluding him, he got up and snuck out of the panic room up to his old room. The mess that he'd unintentionally made Dean stay awake through worked in his favor in that Dean was deep enough asleep that he didn't notice Sam's absence and follow him.

Sam was tired in more ways than one, but he figured that the saying was true. There is no rest for the wicked.

He slid his hand to the bottom of the box he kept his research in and pulled out a single piece of paper with a list of ingredients scrawled on it.

Graveyard dirt.

A black cat's bone or milk from a black cow.

A picture.

Yarrow flowers planted at a crossroads.

He sat on the edge of his bed. This was a bad idea, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to get the emerald-studded sword away from demons without the help of demons.

He also knew that the yellow eyed demon couldn't know about his plans. There were no doubts in his mind that the demon would hesitate to kill him the second he became a possible threat. Favoritism only extended so far.

He tucked the paper into his pocket. Funny how something he mulled over years ago was about to become his best option. The best option for all of them. Back when he first found this list and its use, he didn't know what he would ask for in the first place.

Now, he knew.

Tomorrow. If he could slip away from Dean for long enough, he'd go tomorrow and prevent his family from trying anything reckless for the sake of taking care of the demon.

By doing something reckless himself. He smiled a bit, but it faded quickly and he tried to untwist his stomach from the knots it tied itself in.

He just hoped his tainted soul was worth something.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Uh-oh. Sam has a bad idea. We're getting kind of close to the end of this trilogy, we just need to wrap up Yellow Eyes.

Thank you for the reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! Please leave a review before you go.


	11. A Moment of Truth

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Sam didn't have an appetite for many foods anymore. Most of what he ate didn't taste like anything at all, which made it difficult for him to find the will to shovel one spoonful of cereal into his mouth after the other. No, he spent more time pushing his food around his his bowl than he did eating it.

"You okay, Sam?" Dean asked from across the table.

Sam glanced over at him and nodded.

"You get any sleep?"

"Some," Sam said.

Bobby snorted from behind his newspaper and set it down in favor of his coffee. "Ain't that a load of shit," he said before taking a drink.

Sam shrugged. "I slept a little bit."

"Sam…"

"I'm fine, Dean," Sam said. "I had a hard time sleeping for more than an hour or two."

"Was it because of, well, you know what?"

"I don't know," Sam said. He set his spoon down and pushed his bowl away. "Nothing has flavor anymore."

"Maybe we need to go out and get you something covered in grease," Dean said. "Grease is flavor, you know."

"And heart attack fuel," Sam said.

He meant to make it a joke, but once the words left his mouth, he realized it wouldn't matter. When he made his deal, he'd be numbering the days he had left to live. While ten years might be the standard, and was arguably a long time, it meant that he'd never know how long he was meant to live otherwise.

He wondered how his family was going to take his sudden death in ten years, but he also knew that none of them were guaranteed to last that long. Not with the hunting lifestyle. And then, well, they couldn't rip into him for his choices.

"I don't think you need to worry about having a heart attack anytime soon," Dean said. "But you do need to get some meat on your bones. You look worse than some of the bodies I've torched over the years."

"Is now really the time to worry about that?"

"Do you have a better time in mind?" Dean asked.

"How about _after_ we take care of the demon?"

He wouldn't mind letting Dean fuss over him once it was all said and done, and he owed Dean at least that much for what he was planning.

And he wouldn't be lying if he said that there was a part of him that wanted to spend that time with Dean because he knew he was going to be buying an express ticket to Hell. He'd like some good memories to take with him.

"We have plenty of time right now," Dean said. "I called Dad and told him what you found. He wants us to wait until he's finished checking out his leads on The Colt before we do anything."

"We don't know how long that will take."

"Sam," Bobby said, "I know you want to rush and be done with all of this, but maybe it's time to listen to your daddy and your brother. I don't think the demon will be going anywhere anytime soon. Hell, if anything, he's gonna be looking for _you_."

Dean nodded at Bobby's words. "See? That's why we need to get your strength back up _now_."

Sam sunk lower and lower in his chair. Dean, filled with half the items on a diner's menu, would most likely fall into a food coma if they weren't immediately hunting something. Sam didn't understand why Dean's body seemed to know the difference between when Dean stuffed himself for energy and when Dean stuffed himself for the pleasure of eating, but it did.

Dean in a food coma would be easier to slip away from.

So, Sam shrugged. "Later?" he asked.

Dean grinned. "Yeah, sure," he said. "I'll find someplace good for dinner, and you're eating every god damn bite that they put on your plate."

"No promises," Sam said.

"You wanna come along, Bobby?"

Bobby shook his head. "I go along, you're gonna expect me to pay. With the amount you eat, I'll pass."

"Suit yourself," Dean said. "It's enough of a win to get Sammy to go."

* * *

After breakfast, Sam felt the hunger for demon blood start gnawing at him again. The knowledge that he'd be meeting with a demon that night didn't help much.

Did he want to take a knife with him for what little self-defense it would offer, or was it because he wanted to slice open the demon unfortunate enough to answer his summon and drink it dry?

"You feeling okay, Sammy?" Dean asked. "You're a bit fidgety."

Sam stopped his tapping hand and his shifting in his seat on the couch, not realizing that he was doing either until Dean pointed it out.

"Sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry for not being able to sit still. I just want to know if you're doing okay."

"How okay can I be?"

"Then, talk to me. C'mon."

Sam tried to distract himself with the generic medical drama Dean had playing on the TV, but he found it especially difficult to concentrate between his body begging for blood and Dean begging for Sam's trust without explicitly stating that was what he wanted.

"I don't know what you want me to say," Sam said, finally snapping after Dean's constant questioning.

"Say what's on your mind," Dean said. "You used to be able to talk to me when something was bothering you."

If Dean wanted to ask what happened to that communication between them, he kept it to himself. Sam was glad for that small mercy. The answer to that question was too complex, and he wasn't sure that he understood the answer himself.

"Yeah, well, back then, the things that bothered me were simple compared to now."

"I don't know about that. I remember how much the things that happened affected you, and I know that none of your recovery from it has been easy."

"At least I was recovering from something almost _normal_ ," Sam said. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to crave something you never knew you were addicted to in the first place?"

"Sammy, you know I don't know what that feels like," Dean said. "Sure, I might like alcohol a bit too much, but I know that I'm drinking it. I drink it of my own free will."

"Exactly. Drinking is _your_ choice. I never got a choice in any of this." Sam stood up and started pacing, his voice raising in volume. He didn't know if he was more angry or more upset, he just knew that there were too many emotions he'd bottled away trying to resurface at once.

"I never got a _choice_ ," Sam repeated.

Dean put his hands on Sam's shoulders and led him to the couch, forcing him to sit back down. "Take some deep breaths, Sam. In and out. In and out. There you go."

Sam felt like a child with Dean rubbing his arm and coaching him through deep breathing to keep him from spiraling out of control. This was never where he imagined he'd be when he was nineteen. Once upon a time, he had dreams of going to college. He had dreams of doing something _more._ To make his life revolve around living, not killing.

That almost brought a smile to his face. In a way, he was the opposite of the person he wanted to be before. Back when he was just beginning his teen years and still had a degree of bright-eyed innocence, despite the horrors he'd seen.

"Feeling any better?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded.

"I know that none of this is fair to you, Sam."

"Life hasn't been fair to any of us," he said. He hated how weak and tired he sounded, but his body was still misfiring like crazy as it tried to readjust to normal and it left him easily exhausted.

"Maybe, but not to the same extent."

Sam closed his eyes and dug the heels of his palms into them, the pressure relieving some of the burn that stemmed from his lack of sleep the night before.

"Do you want to try getting some sleep?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged, but he didn't protest when Dean pulled him up and ushered him to the panic room's cot.

In that moment, he didn't know if his plan should be reaffirmed (he would be lifting a lot of burden from the shoulders of his family) or reconsidered (he knew that Dean cared, maybe too much for his own good).

For the time being, he was happy to slip into sleep, even if he knew the visions that might be waiting for him.

* * *

 _Sam walked down a long, dark hallway. He smelled must and mold and death. While he didn't see any end to the hall or any branching paths, he kept moving forward. He kept splashing through scattered puddles and ignoring the wetness that soaked into his socks. Preventing trench foot wasn't his primary concern._

" _Sam…"_

 _His name echoed off the walls, the wispy whisper of a female voice. He tried to follow that voice. He tried to reach the woman calling to him, but he only had two directions to choose from._

 _He strained to listen for the voice again, hoping that it would give him an indication that he was getting closer to the source._

" _Sam!"_

 _He froze. The voice was loud and sharp, the same tone that his father used when he was caught doing something he shouldn't as a child. The same tone his father used when he asked one question too many._

 _But this time the voice belonged to his mother._

" _Mom?" he called. "Mom, where are you?"_

" _Sammy," she whispered, so close he could have sworn she'd spoken directly into his ear._

 _He look over his shoulder, but no one else was there._

 _Sam took a fistful of his hair in each hand and pulled. What the hell was going on?_

 _The hall ended when a wall appeared in front of Sam without warning, and he ran into it, stopping himself from falling backwards by gripping onto the vertical bars making up the wall._

" _What the hell?"_

 _It was a prison cell, the kind he'd only seen in books that described the conditions of the worst prisons. The ones that had been closed a long time ago and labeled inhumane._

" _That's exactly what this is," a man said, appearing on the other side of the bars with yellow eyes._

 _His mom appeared next to him, on her knees with tear tracks marking paths through the dirt on her face. She wore a long, white nightgown, but it was torn and a shadow of the gown Sam's hallucination of her wore._

" _Sammy," she whispered._

" _That's right," Yellow Eyes said. "Your little boy came to visit you in Hell."_

" _This isn't real," Sam said. "I'm just dreaming."_

" _What? You don't think that your mother is burning in Hell right now? Because she is."_

 _He took a few steps closer until they were face-to-face between the bars. "I was the one she sold her soul to," he said._

 _The cell and hallway fell away and Sam saw his mom cradling his dad on the ground in the middle of the night. They were both younger than Sam had seen in any pictures, but he knew that it was them. He could see it._

 _Yellow Eyes appeared next to him. "I gave her an offer. John got to come back to life, but I got an invitation into her home ten years later. Can you guess the date, Sammy?"_

 _Sam shook his head. "No. It can't be."_

" _November 2, 1973."_

" _No."_

" _Making the ten year mark November 2, 1983."_

" _That's not… That can't be…"_

" _The best part," the demon said, "is that I didn't want to kill her."_

 _The area around him shifted again and Sam found himself in the corner of a nursery. The baby in the crib was awake and sounded happy, but there was a shadow looming over him and droplets falling from the shadow's arm into the baby's mouth, barely illuminated by the streetlight seeping in through the window._

 _It was when his mother burst in through the door that Sam's heart sank._

 _The scene froze, and Sam couldn't tear his eyes away from the horror on his mom's face._

" _She didn't have to die," Yellow Eyes said. "She could have lived a nice long life, but it was like she couldn't wait to get to Hell."_

" _Why are you showing me this?" Sam asked._

 _If he didn't feel enough guilt already for his family's situation, he felt worse now. His mother_ had _died because of him, even if he wasn't the one who murdered her._

 _When his dad doubted him after learning about his powers, he'd been right._

 _He'd been right._

" _I have an offer for you," the demon said. "I know your family is keeping you hidden. Come back to me, and I'll get your mother out of Hell."_

 _Sam tried to run, but the demon grabbed his arm and pulled him back. When he struggled to get away, it all faded._

* * *

Dinner went well enough, but Sam knew that Dean had a close watch on him, especially after he refused to talk about what freaked him out during his nap. He ate to appease Dean, but every bite left him nauseated.

All he heard in his mind was a chorus of ' your fault'.

And he didn't have a rebuttal for it this time. There were no truths that he could bend to make himself feel better.

He lasted most of the evening, but it was hard to face Dean. It was hard to talk to him.

He spent some time in his room, slipping a picture of himself into his pocket and the bone that he stole from one of the crazier girls in the day therapy program, a bone from the collection she claimed was of black cat bones. He never fully intended to try summoning a demon, but after reading about it, he couldn't stop himself from taking one when she brought them in like it was demented show-and-tell day at school (and he was lucky to snag one before the workers took them away from her). It was small and unnoticeable in his pocket.

"Dean, I'm going out for a drive," he said once night fell. Forget waiting for Dean to fall asleep and sneaking out, he needed the fresh air now. He needed to do _something_ to get rid of some of the guilt eating at him.

He needed to help avenge his mother. It wasn't just about him anymore.

"Not without me," Dean said. "You aren't going anywhere alone if demons are out looking for you."

"We don't know that they're actively looking for me," Sam said. "Please, Dean. I just want to get out and clear my head. I need the fresh air. I need to _think_."

Dean stayed silent for so long that Sam was sure he was going to protest again. Instead, he held out the car keys and said, "You get one hour, or I'm coming after you. And when you get back, we're talking about what has you so bothered lately. No dodging, got it?"

Sam nodded, fighting the urge to look overly excited at the fact that Dean was giving him everything he needed, and left before Dean changed his mind.

He started up the Impala, getting the chance to drive it for the first time in a long time. Like Dean, he took a second to appreciate the roar of her engine and the power behind it, but then he hurried onto the roads.

He knew where a few crossroads with Yarrow flowers planted beside them were, and he had one hour to get there, including a few stops to get graveyard dirt and a case to put the items in.

One hour to complete the deal. If Dean came looking for him after that, let him.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** As always, thank you for the support for this story! Please take a moment to leave a review.


	12. Worth of a Soul

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Sam cupped his hands and plunged them into the loose gravel that made up the crossroads, wondering—not for the first time—if he was making a mistake. There was finality in his actions that he wasn't sure he liked. This wouldn't be something that could be undone.

He kept scooping out handful after handful of gravel until he had a hole big enough to fit the cheap, plastic pencil case he picked up from a store along the way. It wasn't much, but it held what he needed it to. He placed it in the center of the hole and pushed the little mound of gravel he'd created back over it, patting it down until it was mostly flat once again, feeling more like a kid playing in a sandbox than a man trying to sell his soul to demons.

Not like he wasn't already on the train to Hell. He was just upgrading to an express ticket.

He stood up and looked around the crossroad. None of the recounts of demon deals that he scrounged up mentioned what to expect when summoning a demon. None of them mentioned what happened after the box was buried, or how long he would have to wait before a demon showed up. He pulled out his cell phone to check the time.

Half an hour before Dean started hunting for him.

"Well, looks like it's my lucky day."

Sam turned around to face the speaker, a young woman with straight as a ruler blonde hair and a leather jacket. She would've been Dean's type with the biker look she had going, if she weren't a demon.

"Although, I'm surprised you aren't doing your deals with Azazel," she said.

"Who?"

Sam hadn't dealt with many demons other than the one with yellow eyes that refused to leave him be, so he was surprised when she threw her head back and laughed, more carefree than he expected, but shrill and mocking as well. He felt the sheath on his ankle with a knife in it, itching to plunge the blade into the demon's flesh.

He licked his lips, almost tasting her blood on his lips, but stopped himself. He thought of the week that he barely remembered. The week of hallucinations and pain and feeling like he was already dead even when he kept breathing.

While he heard the heartbeat of the demon and the whoosh of the blood pumping through her veins, he kept his head level.

He didn't want to be the monster that Azazel was trying to make him into.

"You're his favorite, but you don't even know his name?" she asked. "Azazel is the demon who's had you on his leash for years now. You know, he has yellow eyes? Makes him think that he's _so_ special. But I'm guessing you're not here to talk about him."

"I want to make a deal," Sam said.

"Obviously."

"I need a way to get past demons without them noticing me."

The demon's smile fell off her face, but she looked no less interested in what he said. "What could you need that for?"

"Does it matter?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "I guess not. You basically just want to be invisible, for all intents and purposes, to specifically demons."

"Yeah. Basically."

"Looks like it's your lucky day, too. I might know some things about witchcraft, and I'm not the biggest fan of my own kind," she said.

She pulled a small cloth bag from its place tied to her belt. It had a symbol on it that Sam didn't recognize.

"It's a hexbag," she said, answering Sam's unspoken question.

"Okay?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's a hexbag that will take you off the demon radar."

"Why do you have one?"

"Demons can be real bitches. Would you want to deal with them all the time?"

"It feels like I already do," Sam said. "His voice is always in my head. Azazel's voice."

"That sounds worse."

Sam cleared his throat. "So, how does this work? You give me the hexbag, and I get ten years to live?"

The demon laughed. "And then Azazel finds your contract and guts you by tracking down your family before you get to live out your glory days."

Sam hadn't thought about demons knowing about the deals of other demons, but now that he heard about it, he knew that it was too late to go back. Whether he took the deal or not, there was nothing to keep Azazel from finding out.

"Could you keep it a secret?"

"As much as I'd like to throw a wrench in whatever Azazel has planned, it would cost you."

"How much?"

"Six months," she said.

Sam took a deep breath. He'd been expecting worse. Nine-and-a-half years was still a long time. "That's not so bad."

"As in, six months before the deal is collected," she said.

Sam almost fell over when the world spun around him. "What?"

"Hexbag. Secrecy. Six months," she said. "Not a bad bargain for a Winchester. You know that we all want to see your family burning in Hell, right?"

"Want to see them burning in Hell? Isn't my mother already there?"

She started laughing until she looked at his face and saw the genuine confusion he was certain was plainly displayed there. "Believe me, Mary Winchester is a legend even for us, but she's not in Hell."

"But… Azazel told me… You're sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," she said. "If a Winchester was in Hell, you'd never get the rest of us to stop gloating about it to the rest of your family."

"He lied to me."

"Demons do that."

"How do I know you aren't lying about any of this?" Sam asked. "Maybe that hexbag won't work at all, or you'll shout from the fucking mountaintops that I made a deal."

"A demon summoned to a crossroad has to follow a different set of rules," she said. "We might seem chaotic, but even we have a certain degree of order."

They stood in silence for what felt like a long time, and Sam almost expected Dean to show up and drag him away before either one of them spoke again.

"I don't think I can do this," Sam said.

"Then, none of this is binding, and I can tell Azazel all about your nighttime activities."

That was just one more reminder to Sam that he hadn't thought this through as much as he should have.

"I thought you didn't like Azazel," he said.

"Well, I have my own reasons for wanting a Winchester in Hell," she said. "I'm not above a few threats."

Sam paced a small length of the road. She had him cornered.

If he said 'no', he faced Azazel's wrath in any form it might take.

If he said 'yes', he faced his own death in six months.

Saying 'no' meant putting his family in unnecessary danger. Azazel killed Mary because she got in his way and nothing more. What would he do to Dean or John?

He steeled himself with a courage he didn't know he possessed anymore. He steeled himself with his love for a family he didn't deserve.

"Fine," he said. "Deal."

She stepped closer, and he stepped back. With a roll of her eyes, she said, "Deals are sealed with kisses."

"What?"

"I don't make the rules," she said. "Trust me, I don't like it any more than you do, but it'll be quick."

It took all of Sam's willpower to keep from pushing her away, but she at least stayed true to her word in making it quick. If only the way his skin crawled and the flashes of memory the touch of a stranger brought up would go away as quickly.

She shoved the hexbag into his hands and said, "Pleasure doing business with you, Sam Winchester."

When she disappeared, Sam fell to his hands and knees and sobbed.

* * *

Dean kept his eyes scanning for the Impala as he drove one of Bobby's junkers through the streets. Of course, Sam hadn't come back within the hour that Dean had given him. He knew it was a bad idea, but he hoped that if he gave a little, Sam would, too.

But Sam, as he was now, took a mile when given an inch.

Dean drove for nearly a half-an-hour before he spotted the Impala, parked on the side of a back road. He pulled over and parked behind it, cutting the engine and barely remembering to close the door when he got out.

He didn't bother peeking in the windows of the Impala to see if Sam was still in it, not when he heard a sound that he hadn't heard in years.

Sam sobbing. Not just crying. Not just upset. Sobbing. Horrible ugly sobs.

Dean fell to his knees next to Sam, the denim of his jeans absorbing the cuts and sharp jabs of the gravel. First, he checked Sam over for injuries, but he knew that no physical wound could reduce his brother to this state.

He hesitated, but put his arm over Sam's shoulders. "Hey, Sam. Sammy," he said. "What's wrong?"

Sam shook his head, but didn't answer. Dean helped him to his feet and snaked out the Impala's keys from his pocket. He settled Sam in the passenger seat and took his own place behind the wheel, but caught a glimpse of something in Sam's hand before he put the keys in the ignition.

"What's that?" Dean asked.

Sam tried to keep it out of his reach, but there was only so much room in a car and Dean pried it out of his hands regardless.

"Sam, what is this?"

He flipped it over in his hands. It was small and light, but the symbol painted on it bothered him. If this was supernatural in nature, why did Sam have it?

"Hexbag."

"A _hexbag_?" Dean asked. He reached for his lighter, but Sam grabbed it from him.

"It's not like that," he said. His voice cracked and his eyes were red. "It's for protection."

"Against what?" Dean asked, itching to burn it.

"Demons," Sam said. "I… it'll hide me from them."

"How the fuck did you get something like this? Did you make it?" Dean asked.

Why wouldn't Sam tell him if he went out because he had a way to protect himself from something? Didn't he know that Dean would jump at any chance to help him out?

Was it a trust issue?

"Yeah, I did. I… I made it."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Dean asked. "I would've helped you."

"I didn't think it would work," Sam said. "Will you just give it back to me? I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Dean wanted to press him, demand answers, but Sam looked miserable enough. The agreement might have been for them to talk after Sam got his fresh air, and Dean was going to get him to talk. For now, though, he handed Sam's hexbag back to him and started them on their way back to Bobby's.

He'd come back for the junker later, after he had Sam back in safety. Sam's sobs had mostly died down since he got in the Impala and he explained the hexbag, but he made sounds that left Dean suspecting that this wasn't something that would be wiped away easily. It was rare for something to upset Sam so much, and it left Dean a little more than worried.

He considered turning on a soft rock station and trying to use it to lull Sam to sleep, they used to knock him right out when he was a kid, but he decided against it.

"You know you can talk to me, right?" Dean asked. "About anything. Whatever's bothering you, I'm all ears."

He expected Sam to say that he knew that. That he would talk, but wanted to put it off until he had his thoughts straightened.

What he didn't expect was for Sam to shrug and spend the rest of the ride silently staring out the window, and that cut deep.

* * *

Sam asked for time alone when they got back, and Dean let him shut himself in his room. While they were going to have a lengthy conversation whether Sam liked it or not, he wanted to talk to Bobby first.

"Looks like you found him," Bobby said.

"Yeah, he was just sobbing in the middle of the road and he won't say what made him that upset," Dean said. "Bobby, I don't know what to do anymore. I'm losing him when he's right in front of me."

"Maybe you need to push him. I know you want him to come to you with his problems, but Sam's gotten good at hiding things. Maybe he doesn't remember how _not_ to hide them."

Dean slumped down on the couch, trying to rub the urge to sleep away from his tired eyes.

"Have you ever heard of a hexbag being used for protection?" Dean asked.

"No, but we usually find them because witches use them to do spell-work on a victim that's far away," Bobby said. "I don't see why they couldn't save their own skin with a hexbag ready to lay some good mojo on them when they need it. Why do you ask?"

"Sam was clutching one in his hand when I found him, and he claimed that it would protect him from demons. Where would Sam have learned to make one?"

"Have you seen my library, Dean? There's a spellbook or two in there, at least. Real handy for witch hunts."

"But why wouldn't he have talked to us if he was trying to make something that would keep him safe?" Dean asked. "It's just… I don't know, this isn't adding up."

"You're right. He's been acting off, but he's been acting off for a while. And then there's the whole detox and addiction," Bobby said.

"I just want to help him," Dean said. "I just want him to be okay again."

Bobby sat next to him. "You know, you have better instincts than a lot of hunters I've come across, Dean. Might do you both some good to listen to them. Don't worry about the junker, I'll go out and get it in the morning if you tell me where you left it."

"How'd you know?"

Bobby smiled after a breathy half-laugh. "As if you would let Sam drive back on his own when he's like that."

Dean stayed where he was, even after Bobby got up and hid away in the library. He cradled his head in his hands and wondered where it all went wrong, but he had a pretty good idea of what the answer to that was.

The way that Sam had been acting and the distance he'd been putting between them left Dean with an icy feeling in his veins. He was worried and scared about what had Sam so shaken. So withdrawn and upset. About what had Sam sobbing in the middle of nowhere. This was more than withdrawal symptoms and trauma. Fifteen years of constant contact with Sam growing up gave Dean the ability to tell when Sam was trying to keep him from knowing something.

This was something terrible, and he was determined to find out exactly what Sam was hiding.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** As always, thank you for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting! Your support is what keeps me going.


	13. Breaking Point

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Dean took a deep breath and stopped to listen with his hand on the doorknob to Sam's room. Their once shared room when they were dropped off at Bobby's and the world didn't weigh them down like it did now. He didn't hear much on the other side of the door, and the possibility that Sam had fallen asleep crossed his mind.

If Sam managed to fall asleep as upset as he was, Dean wouldn't bother him. If Sam was awake, well, they were long overdue for a heart-to-heart. Maybe a screaming match and a mess of mood swings and fists swinging, depending upon how it played out.

They just needed to get everything out in the open. Clean up the mess they were making for themselves.

Dean knocked a few times, just light taps that wouldn't disturb a sleeping Sam. He didn't get a response, but he wasn't expecting one either.

He eased open the door and peeked his head in. "Sammy?" he whispered.

Sam was on the bed, a lump under blankets facing the wall and keeping his back to the rest of the world. Dean sighed. He stepped into the room and stood still for a few minutes, Sam not doing anything more than breathing as he watched.

Was he faking sleep? It was possible, but he hated to think that _that_ was where they were at, faking sleep to avoid talking to each other. Yet, if Sam had decided to fake sleep, there wouldn't be much point in Dean trying to pry answers from him. When Sam didn't want to talk, he would keep his silence at gunpoint if it came to it. Stubbornness was a Winchester specialty.

He loomed over Sam and debated grabbing his shoulder and shaking him, getting the whole share-and-care thing out of the way, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Sam needed the sleep, he reminded himself, and Sam's needs came first.

Dean was about to leave, but the sound of something crinkling under his foot had him crouching down to grab the piece of paper he'd stepped on. A piece of paper that was sticking out of the pocket of the jeans that Sam left on the floor.

He picked it up and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"Sorry, Sam," he said in the hallway. "But if you won't tell me what you're hiding yourself, I'm gonna have to resort to snooping."

He read the paper as he walked back to Bobby's library. "Graveyard dirt. A black cat's bone or milk from a black cow? What the hell is this?"

Bobby looked up at him when he entered the room, and he held the paper out for him to take.

"Do you know what this shit is used for?" Dean asked.

"Balls," Bobby said, reading the list and setting it aside.

"What?"

Bobby said, "This stuff is used for summoning a crossroads demon."

Dean swallowed a few times, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat. "Why would someone summon a crossroads demon?"

"There's an old legend about Robert Johnson that says he sold his soul at a crossroads in exchange for his musical ability," Bobby said. "People summon crossroad demons because they want something, and they pay with their soul. When the time comes to collect the deal, it's a one-way ticket to Hell."

Dean sat heavily in one of the extra chairs Bobby had in his library. He wanted to throw up, and he could feel his stomach strongly considering the idea. "How long do they usually get before the deal is collected?"

"I think the average is ten years or so."

Dean nodded. "And the deals… can they be broken or anything? Extended, even?"

"Not as far as I know. Selling your soul is something serious, Dean."

"I found Sam at a crossroad," Dean said. The realization almost painful with the possible reason behind Sam's location. "Holy shit. You don't think he…?"

"The evidence is pretty damning," Bobby said. "I think Sam went out tonight to deal with a devil."

" _Why_?"

Was that the reason he was sobbing? What had the demon given him? What had the demon done?

Bobby shook his head. "You know I don't have the answer to that."

The war of emotions within Dean was won by anger. Anger so intense he swore that his internal organs were on fire.

With clenched fists, he stomped out of Bobby's house and into the junkyard, stopping only to grab a crowbar. He knew where the cars that would never be in working shape again were kept. The cars that were there only to be scrapped for parts.

And he slammed the crowbar into the windshield of one of those cars. He slammed it against the windshield again and again, enjoying the ripple of cracks that appeared as evidence of his rage. He moved on from the windshield to the body of the car, leaving dent after dent and chipping the paint even more than it already was. He kept hitting the car until his arms burned in protest and his breath came in harsh gasps.

Then, he fell to his knees like a praying man and let his bowed head rest against the side of the car. If he believed that praying would help him in any way, if he believed that it would give him answers or a chance to undo whatever Sam did that night, he would pray until his vocal cords gave out. He would shout prayers from mountaintops if he had to. Hop on a soapbox and preach to the passers-by.

His anger had faded, and he was almost afraid to go back in the house and face Sam. He was afraid of the answers Sam would give him. He was afraid of Sam confirming his fear that he made a deal and sold his soul.

This was one of the few times he was afraid of being right, but the pieces were fitting together in a way that made it difficult to believe he could be wrong.

If he were a praying man, he'd pray to be wrong this time.

* * *

Once the chill of night started to pull him from the emptiness that cocooned him, Dean pushed himself to his feet and went back inside. He grabbed Sam's list from Bobby's desk in the library, checking once more and trying to convince himself that it wasn't Sam's handwriting. But it was.

He didn't bother knocking before letting himself into Sam's room. He didn't bother with the courtesy of letting Sam get some sleep that he desperately needed. If he was right, then Sam already had his days numbered. Ten years or not, Dean couldn't stand the thought of Sam being dragged into Hell because he made a stupid decision on his own.

He gripped Sam's shoulder and shook him until he sat up in bed, awake and alert. Then, Dean shoved the list in his face, not leaving enough room to even read it.

"What the fuck is this?" he asked.

It was the way that Sam's eyes widened. It was the way his mouth hung open like it had words to speak, but they were stuck. It was the genuine terror hidden beneath the surprise. It was all these things that told Dean exactly what he wanted to know.

Sam made a deal. Sam sold his soul in exchange for something.

"Dean, I…"

"No, Sam," Dean said. "I'm not going to sit here and listen to your excuses. I want the truth this time, got it?"

Sam nodded and let his head droop down. His hair was long enough to fall into his face and hide it from Dean.

"Did you sell your soul tonight?" Dean asked. No use in trying to ease into the question.

Sam nodded again after a moment's hesitation.

Dean bit his tongue to keep from yelling at Sam. To hold his words back long enough to think them through. But his vision was red in his anger and he started pacing uselessly.

"What did you sell it for?"

It was almost too quiet for Dean to hear his answer, but Sam said, "Hexbag."

Dean stopped mid-step. "What?"

He shouldn't have bought that Sam had gotten himself into witchcraft, but he didn't know his brother anymore. He didn't _know._ And Sam was the type to try something different. Something none of them would think of trying.

Like selling his soul to a god damn demon.

Sam didn't respond, but Dean knew what he said the first time. He didn't _want_ Sam to elaborate anymore, he just wanted Sam to stop lying to him.

"What were you thinking, Sam?" Dean asked. "Why didn't you talk to me? Why didn't you say anything? You should have at least given me the chance to tell you how fucking stupid you are _before_ you tried to take that stupidity to another level!"

Dean ended his rant by punching the wall, close enough to Sam that it caused him to flinch. With that, he sat on the edge of Sam's bed and closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. Having his life unravel before him was something that he'd never get used to, but this time was worse. He was at risk of losing Sam in very permanent ways.

" _Why_?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't know."

"No, you don't get to do that this time, Sam," Dean said. "Tell me why you did this."

"It was all my fault to begin with."

"What? What was?"

"Everything. Our entire lives. Did you know that the demon was there for _me_? He didn't care about Mom living or dying. She just got in his way."

"You don't know that," Dean said.

"Yes, I do, Dean. He told me. He _showed_ me that night. He was there to feed me blood when I was a baby. This is always how my life was supposed to go. I was damned when I was six months old, Dean. Do you have any idea what all this feels like?"

"Sam, you can't seriously be blaming yourself for that. You were a baby. You couldn't even _walk_ , let alone decide to become a demon's pawn."

Sam looked over at him, finally, with red eyes. He kept biting at his lip in the way he always did when he was holding back tears as a kid. The sadness on his face was so open and honest and innocent, and Dean saw the Sam he knew. The Sam he practically raised.

Maybe he wasn't as far gone as Dean believed. Maybe he could dare to hope.

"He told me that Mom was in Hell, but the demon at the crossroads said she wasn't. Then, it was too late to go back unless I wanted Azazel after all of us," Sam said. His words rushed out almost faster than Dean could process them.

"Azazel?"

"The demon with yellow eyes," Sam said. "He won't… He won't get out of my head. I can't get him out of my head."

"And why wouldn't you tell me that either?" Dean said. "What's with all the lies, Sam? Why can't you just tell me what's going on? Why can't you _trust_ me?"

"Because I've dragged you through enough shit," Sam said, his voice rising above a whisper for the first time since Dean picked him up earlier. "You didn't need more added to everything else you already deal with because of me!"

Dean couldn't help himself, and his hand was already sore from hitting the wall, but his fist met Sam's face anyway. The force of it had Sam falling to the side until he was leaning against the wall, one hand pressed over the red splotch forming.

"That's not a choice you get to make, Sam!" Dean said. "How do you think I feel finding out that you're going to Hell?"

"You weren't supposed to find out," Sam said, back to a whisper.

"Oh? And that's supposed to make it better? I don't even know what to say to you, Sam. You wanted to avoid landing me in more shit by going and landing me in more shit? Do you even understand how bad this is?"

"It's my soul, Dean. I think I understand how bad it is for me. But I figured, you know, I was already going to Hell. Why not speed up the process and end the one hunt that we've been on our entire lives?"

"I can't believe you, Sam. You weren't damned, but you are now! Why wouldn't you let me help you when I still could? You can drag me into the worst the world has to offer, and I'll be right at your side through it all because _I want to be_. Don't you get that?"

"I'm sorry."

"Apologies aren't going to fix any of this, Sam," Dean said. "I don't even know if demon deals can be broken."

He wanted to ask Sam 'why' until his throat was raw and bleeding and his voice gave out. He wanted to yell at Sam and shake him (punch him, maybe) until the deal went away, but none of it would help.

"How long do you have?" Dean asked.

"Six months."

Those two words were like a punch to his gut that left Dean unable to get air in his lungs. Six months, not ten years. In less than a single year, Sam would be unreachable.

He heard the hitches in Sam's breath and supposed that saying it out loud made it as real for him as it had for Dean. So, Dean pulled Sam into a hug and held on as tight as he could, letting his own tears fall. He couldn't offer reassurances or say that everything would be okay, because it wasn't. None of this was okay, and he didn't know how to fix any of it or where to begin.

The one thing he knew was that he wasn't ready to let go of Sam. He never would be.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** And it's time to get Sam and Dean back on the same side with a much needed conversation and punch throwing.

As always, thank you for the views, reviews, follows, and favorites!

Please leave a review before you go.


	14. Adjustment Period

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

"Look, Dad, I know that you're checking out leads and that you're busy, but I really need you to come back to Bobby's," Dean said. "We both need you back here."

"Can't you take care of it, Dean?" John said.

"I really can't, Dad," Dean said, trying to keep his voice steady. He didn't want John to hear how broken he felt. He couldn't let himself break when Sam needed him. "Not this time."

He heard shuffling on the other line.

"Can you try to handle it on your own? I thought you said Sam was doing better," John said. "What could have happened?"

"This is something that's a little out of my league, Dad. And it's not about the demon blood. Or maybe it is a little bit, but that's not the main issue. I just think that it's something you should hear in person."

"Dean…"

"Dad, please. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. You know that."

Dean sat alone on the cot in the panic room, phone pressed to one ear. He leaned his back against the wall and tilted his head up to watch the ceiling fan spin. What did Sam see when he was lying here? What did Sam's mind cook up for him? Dean knew the basics of the hallucinations, but Sam hadn't gone into very much depth.

Since the revelation about Sam's deal, Dean had the constant feeling that he had one foot hovering over the edge of a cliff, waiting for him to try and take one step forward and plummet.

"Tell me what happened, and let me decide if it's that important."

Dean took a deep breath. He didn't want to think about it, much less say it. "It's Sam."

"I gathered that much. What about Sam?"

"He made a deal," Dean said. "Dad, he sold his soul to a demon, and now he's going to go to Hell in six months. I don't know what to do."

He heard the phone call end, and he let his own phone fall to the cot.

He didn't move to get up and go back to Sam in the upstairs bedroom. He didn't make a move to do anything more than sit and stare at the ceiling. John knew now, but Dean didn't know what he'd do with that information. Part of him was afraid that John would continue his hunt for The Colt and ignore that Sam made a deal.

A larger part of him hoped that John was dropping everything to rush back to them. He hoped that John had an answer, that he had a solution.

If there weren't any answers or solutions, at least they could spend Sam's final months together as a family.

* * *

Sam felt his soul rotting within him already. He didn't know that it was from the deal, specifically, or if it was another aftereffect of detoxing from demon blood. Maybe it was from the psychic powers that he cursed his family with.

He should be doing something, but the shock of his deal kept him paralyzed. Six months instead of ten years, and all because he wanted a hexbag and some secrecy. He'd been stupid, he didn't need Dean to tell him that. He knew it himself. While he thought he was prepared, he'd been sorely mistaken.

The demon put him between a rock and a hard place, but she'd given him one way out and he had to take it for the sake of his family.

When Dean left to call their dad (something Sam had been vehemently against, but Dean wasn't accepting any input from him), Sam had taken his anger out on his room. Bits of his bedding had charred edges. There were burn marks on the floor and objects strewn about, torn from their places without him having to lift a finger.

The power inside him had dimmed without the aid of demon blood, but they'd been strong on their own before the blood was a factor, and they could be strong again. He knew it. He had to believe that they were like muscles. That he could train them in the same way he trained his body to hunt.

A few knocks and the door opened, Bobby leaning against its frame. "Hey, Sam," he said.

Sam glanced up at him, but couldn't maintain eye contact.

Bobby pushed himself from the frame and sat next to Sam on the bed. "How are you holding up?"

Sam shrugged.

"You know, I'm tempted to take a swing at you, but it looks like Dean beat me to it," Bobby said. "What the hell were you thinking, son?"

"That I was already damned, so I might as well do something useful first. I thought I'd get ten years, and that's not so bad for a hunter," Sam said. His words were even and emotionless. He just… didn't have anything left to give.

"You know that demon cheated you, why'd you still take the deal?"

"It wasn't just for the hexbag," Sam said. "She's keeping my deal secret from Azazel, the demon with yellow eyes. Secrecy… I guess it has a high price."

"I really oughta throttle you, Sam. How could you be so stupid? Why didn't you talk to me or Dean first?" Bobby didn't raise his voice often, but he was on the verge of yelling now, his face red in his anger. "You _know_ what happens when a hunter runs off with some half-cocked plan! You _know_ that it never ends well!"

Sam figured he deserved that anger. He was angry at himself. A demon played him, and he couldn't do anything other than let her unless he wanted to paint a bullseye on his family.

"He's still in my head, and I just wanted to do something to make him leave," Sam said. "I wanted something to hide me from demons so I could get the emerald-studded sword and finally end all this. It was impulsive, and she took advantage of that. It was stupid, and I _know_ that, but I can't change it now. I can't take it back or try to do things differently."

Bobby deflated and took a few deep breaths. "I wish I could help you with this, Sam, but I'm not sure that there's anything that I can do this time."

"I know." Sam cradled the hexbag in his hands, turning it over and tracing the symbol. "We should at least put this to use."

"Might wanna give it a day or two before you round up Dean to help you. Let everything sink in."

"I only have one hexbag," Sam said. "So, only one of us can go and not be detected by the demons."

"I still think you should wait a little bit, Sam. How do you think Dean will handle it if you disappear after he learns that you've got six months left? He was borderline hysterical when he came downstairs and told me what was going on."

"I never meant to hurt him," Sam said, but the words sounded weak to his own ears.

"Shoulda thought of that before you made the deal," Bobby said. "Do you really think that your life is worth that little?"

Sam didn't answer. His life hadn't felt worth anything since numbers were tattooed on the inside of his arm by strangers. The burn scar from his self-removal job taunted him sometimes. He could erase the numbers, but never the memories and never fully. The scars would always remain.

No matter what shell he tried to hide himself in, he still felt like that scared boy who only wished that Dean was there to fix everything.

"Will you watch out for Dean when I'm gone?" he asked.

"Sam…"

"I know you don't want to talk or think about it, Bobby, but… _please_."

"Yeah," Bobby said. "You know I will."

* * *

The situation felt reminiscent of that winter when he was fifteen. Dean was a constant presence, hovering and trying to lift the mood, but everyone knew that his heart wasn't in the jokes he made. The smiles they tried to plaster on were so fake, that they all stopped pretending to be remotely okay with what was happening. They ignored any unshed tears that shined in each other's eyes and any hitched breaths.

Sam felt like a terminally ill patient, given six months to live. And there was no medicine or treatment that could prolong his disease.

Dean mindlessly flipped through channels on the TV, nothing keeping his interest for more than a minute at most.

"There was a girl in the same therapy program," Sam said.

"Just one?"

Sam didn't have it in him to glare at Dean for the comment, just as Dean didn't seem to have it in him to spread a shit-eating grin across his face as he usually did when he made purposely idiotic remarks.

"Her name was Meg. She, uh… I don't know why she was in it exactly. She didn't say and I never really asked. The most she ever said was that her dad was a demon, and I wondered. You know? Like what if he was? Or what if she knew about the things that were out there and he was possessed?"

"Do you think that she might've?" Dean asked.

"No. I don't know. I just… I don't know why I brought it up."

"I'm glad you did," Dean said. "That's the first time you actually told me something specific about your time in that program."

"Is it?"

Dean nodded.

"Huh. I guess I just never thought it was that important," Sam said.

"Did you like it?"

"I don't know. I guess I felt better having other kids around who were just as broken as I was, but I hated the way the staff treated us. I hated that they pitied us and thought we were made of glass or something." Sam paused before he added, "It was lonely."

It _had_ been lonely. He finally got some stability, but he had to learn to not rely on Dean's constant presence. He had to learn to be as independent as he always wanted to be. But when he had it, he no longer wanted it.

Without Dean around, he didn't have anyone that he knew he could tell anything to. Sure, Bobby was there, and a slew of therapists and other traumatized or otherwise mentally ill kids were there, too.

But it wasn't the same, and he learned to get used to being alone. He learned to get used to Azazel's company in his head.

"Why didn't you say anything? We could've taken you out of it or something."

Sam shrugged and slumped lower in his seat. "It felt like I couldn't do anything, but at least I could do that. And everyone was hoping that it would help me, and I hoped it would, too."

"Do you think it helped?"

"Maybe with some things. I don't think it was ever meant to be a cure or anything. They mostly wanted us to be able to function on our own."

"I wish you'd said something," Dean said.

"I'm saying something now," Sam said.

Dean grunted as his reply and returned his focus to the TV, effectively ending the conversation. But Sam knew what he left unspoken.

A lot of things were too little, too late now.

* * *

Breakfast the next day wasn't pleasant. There was no yelling and no harsh words exchanged, but there was a thick tension filling the room and Sam knew that Bobby and Dean weren't tasting the food any more than he was.

Sam wanted to go and get the sword, but any time he tried to bring it up, the look Bobby shot him made the words die in his throat. Sure, none of them were handling his deal well, but they didn't exactly have the time to waste sitting around _trying_ to let it sink in.

He could almost see the sand in his hourglass dwindling down.

Breakfast was made even more tense when Bobby's door was slammed open and John walked through. He took one glance at them at the table and said, "Bobby. Dean. Do you think I could have a minute to talk to Sam?"

Bobby didn't need to be told twice. He was never one to pry into their family problems unless he felt he had to. So, he left his plate behind and went outside mumbling that there were some cars he had to take care of anyway.

Dean stayed put. "You can say whatever you have to, but you can say it with me here."

"I don't want to say it with you here. Go help Bobby for a few minutes," John said.

"Dad…"

"I'm not going to hurt him, and it looks like you already took a swing at him. I'm not even going to yell at him, Dean. We're just going to have a conversation," John said. "And I'd like you to respect that and give us a minute."

It was obvious that it was difficult for Dean to leave, but he did, glancing over his shoulder at Sam on the way out.

The silence stretched between them until it was uncomfortable, almost oppressive. Despite what John told Dean, Sam couldn't shake the feeling that he was about to be punished. That he was about to be yelled at or be the victim of another right hook.

Not that he didn't deserve it.

John looked older than the last time Sam saw him in his detox-distorted mind. Older like years passed, not weeks.

And Sam didn't want to see it, so he let his head droop down and stared at the table.

"What happened, Sam?" he asked. He didn't sound angry. He didn't sound frustrated. He was tired. He was curious, and he wanted answers.

He wanted what he always wanted, something to work with. The problem was that Sam wasn't sure he had anything to give John to work with.

"I didn't think, and I wanted a way to hide myself from demons."

"No, Sam. There's more to it than that. I want the details from you. Why did you only get six months?" He enunciated each syllable carefully. It was the same way that he talked to the victims who were especially shaken. It was the only way to get through to them most times.

"I asked her to keep my deal from Azazel, the demon with yellow eyes," Sam said. "Secrecy from a demon has a high price."

"You had to know that she was screwing you with this deal," he said. "Why'd you take it?"

"I… She didn't give me a _choice_ , Dad. I had to."

"You have to give me more than that, Sam."

"She threatened to tell Azazel would I was trying to do if I didn't take the deal," Sam said. "I couldn't do that to any of you."

"Do what?" John asked.

Sam vaguely remembered a time when John was this patient talking to him, but it was so long ago that it felt unnatural now.

"Paint targets on all of your backs."

"You didn't think that we couldn't handle a few demons?"

"He's different," Sam said. "You know he is. I… He spent long enough in my head for me to know that."

"Do you think that this is better than us trying to fight him off?" John asked. "You would rather guarantee your death and an eternity in Hell?"

"I don't know!" Sam said. "I wasn't thinking. I just… I didn't want to be the reason that one of you got hurt. That's blood that I couldn't have on my hands."

"You've put us in an impossible situation, Sam."

"I'm sorry," Sam said. As if it could change a deal that had already been made.

John sat in the chair next to Sam and put his elbows on the table, covering his face with them. The slump of his shoulders was something Sam remembered seeing during the most frustrating of hunts. Sam only saw it when John was exhausted to the point where even his determination faded, which made it a rare sight.

Which made it a sight that did not bode well for him or his future.

"Why aren't you pissed at me?" Sam asked. "Why aren't you yelling or throwing punches or _something_?"

'Why aren't you doing anything other than sitting and accepting this?' is what Sam really wanted to ask. He knew going in that he was tying his own noose, for all intents and purposes, but he didn't know how much he wanted John to fight until he _didn't_.

"Believe me, Sam, I'm _beyond_ pissed at you right now," John said. He let his arms fall to the table and sat back. "I want nothing more than to tear you a new one right now, but we don't have the time for me to be angry. We don't have the time for much other than facts."

Sam nodded and kept his head down. He pulled at his sleeves and picked at loose threads on his clothes, only realizing that he was shaking when he saw the trembling of his hands that he couldn't stop. But it didn't stop at his hands, and he resembled someone who'd been trapped outside in the winter for hours without the proper clothing.

In six months, he would never feel the cold again. The only sensations he would know were pain and fire.

"I'm… I'm really scared," Sam said.

John stood up. He pulled Sam from his seat and into a tight hug, but Sam was certain that his grip was tighter. As if holding on could keep him from… from dying.

"I know, Sammy," John said. "I'm scared, too."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Have you ever had someone so angry with you that they were calm? It's very strange and kinda scary. John is stepping up and being the rock that they need at the moment, we'll have to see what that counts for.

As always, thank you for the reads, reviews, follows, and favorites!

Please leave a review before you go.


	15. It's Not About Trust

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

They sat around Bobby's kitchen table, the hexbag at the center taunting them. None of them said it (that day, it'd been said plenty of other times since they found out), but they all knew that it hadn't been worth it. As much as Sam wanted to believe that he did something right, he knew the second the demon cornered him into taking the deal that he just made the biggest mistake of his life. (He wished he could blame detox and withdrawal for his lapse of judgment, but his judgment had been shitty for years now. There was just no excuse for some things.) And as long as Azazel was still on the lose, they had to put his deal to the side. Focus on one problem at a time.

"Are you sure about this, Sam?" his dad asked.

Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was the same conversation he had with Dean before, doubting his research about the emerald-studded sword. Even after he spent years working with Bobby to research subjects that most of the population was clueless about. Even after all the times he had to track down obscure legends and references to help save a hunter's life.

"I'm as sure as I can be without ever having been in contact with it," Sam said. "That's why I should be the one to go in, I have a better idea about what I'm looking for."

"Fill me in, and I'll do it," Dean said. "How hard can it be to grab a sword from some hunter's abandoned home?"

"Some hunters take their security seriously," Bobby said. "You never know what traps they might have set up to keep creatures out. Traps that might very well hurt human intruders, too."

Which was exactly why Sam wanted to be the one to go in and get the sword, not that he could say it in any explicit terms, but he was the one already slated to die. He was the one already operating on limited time, so if something happened to him, it wasn't as big of a deal as something happening to Dean or John or Bobby.

"I can still use my powers," Sam said, surprised that he hadn't thought of it earlier.

"You're not sucking down demon blood just to get a stupid sword," Dean said.

"No, I'm not," Sam said. "When I was a kid and they first developed, I used them on my own. No blood or anything. I can do that again. I did it earlier. So, it would be the safest for me to go. I have tools that none of you have."

"If I recall correctly, you've never had complete control over those powers, and there's still proof on your arm that you don't always use them responsibly either," Dean said. "I don't want you using them."

There was something new in Dean's eyes when he said that, a touch of fear and hesitation.

"What? Because now you know that demon blood can make them stronger?" Sam asked.

Dean didn't answer.

"That's it, isn't it?"

"Well, that knowledge doesn't exactly help. If they can be influenced by something like that, I'm not sure we should rely on them," Dean said.

Sam nodded, but refused to look at any of them. Dean's fears were fears that he, himself, kept hidden for years. The nature of his powers confused and scared him, although not as much now that he knew that Azazel dripped blood into his mouth when he was a baby. It was why he bolted when he was forced to reveal his powers to save his family. It was why he ran to Amy thinking that he was a freak that belonged in the company of other supernatural creatures.

It was an issue he thought was behind them, but he always feared that it would arise again. That they would change their mind and hunt him down.

He laughed softly. Well, he had a demon hunting him down in under six months, now. It looked like they didn't need to anymore.

"Something funny about this, Sam?" John asked.

Sam shook his head. "No, it's… it's nothing. But I really think it should be me. I'm the one who did all the research. That's _my_ hexbag. Plus, I've handled a lot of riskier situations. This time, I'm only looking for an object, not people. Not frightened kids."

"I don't give a fuck," Dean said. "I'm not letting you out of my sight. Last time you went off on your own, you _sold your soul_."

Sam wanted to point out that, while that was true, he couldn't sell his soul a second time. But that wouldn't help his case. In fact, it would hurt his case as he was sure he was one wrong word away from being benched for this plan completely.

"We'd be there for back-up," John said. "The demons sound like they're so focused on the house that they won't notice a few humans hanging around who aren't trying to break in."

"You're not actually considering this, Dad," Dean said.

John shrugged. "I don't like it either, but Sam has some good points."

"Can you just trust me for once, Dean? I can do this. It won't even take an hour. Get in the house, get the sword, and get out."

"If you think this is about trust, then you just don't fucking get it, Sam," Dean said, standing up and slamming his hands down on the table.

Dean got up and left the room, leaving Sam stunned in his seat. If it wasn't a trust issue, then what was it? Not that he would blame Dean for not trusting him.

John cleared his throat. "Give him some time to cool off, Sam. Where is the hunter's house?"

"Washington," Sam said. "A little outside of Seattle."

"And you're absolutely _sure_ that—"

"I'm more sure about this than you are about The Colt," Sam said. "For what that's worth."

John nodded. His expression was one that Sam saw a lot when he was younger, but not as much recently. Not since he stayed behind with Bobby.

"We'll leave tomorrow morning. It's gonna be a long drive," John said.

John got up and left the room, leaving only Sam and Bobby at the table.

"Hey, Bobby? What did Dean mean about this not being about trust?"

Bobby shook his head. "Look, Sam, I think of you and your brother as my own, but I also think that this problem is between you and Dean. You two need to work it out on your own. If I had to guess, though, I'd say that there's something bigger bugging Dean."

Sam took a deep breath. If something was bugging Dean to the point of him getting angry and walking out, then he wasn't sure that he wanted to know what it was. There wasn't much that Dean let get to him, and Sam was honestly stumped about it not being a trust issue. He wouldn't have blamed Dean for not being able to trust him. He wasn't exactly proving that he was trustworthy lately.

"I'm not sure he's going to want to talk to me right now," Sam said.

"Well," Bobby said, "I'm not sure there will ever be a good time to hash out something like that, but I suggest you get it over with soon. You're on borrowed time, boy. We want to take care of the demon and spend the rest of your time trying to find a damn loophole in that deal you made, not arguing with each other. Anger takes time and energy that would be better spent on more important things."

Sam grabbed the hexbag from the table and held it for a second. For something so small, it was deceptively heavy. It put the weight of the world on his shoulders and on the shoulders of his family, making them bow to a fate that none of them wanted.

He gave Bobby a quick nod and left to search after Dean, almost hoping that he was out in the yard working on one of the cars so he had an excuse to delay their conversation.

He really wasn't looking forward to dealing with a Dean who was angry with him.

* * *

Dean paced the length of the panic room. He ached to punch something, namely Sam, but knew that it wouldn't make him feel any better. Violence had been his outlet for so long, but it couldn't be with every situation. This was something he had to deal with, not push to the side or bury within himself.

How could Sam be so goddamn dense that he thought Dean protested the idea purely out of a lack of trust? Sure, a lot of shit happened that should wither his trust in Sam, but it didn't. It _didn't_.

Because he was to blame for a large portion of Sam's poor decision making and lack of self-worth. All because he just couldn't stay at a shitty motel for one night instead of going out to have a drink that he thought he deserved.

And then, he wasn't there while Sam was in a therapy program that he didn't care for and left him feeling lonely. He wasn't there to be someone Sam could talk to, and Sam fell into a habit of silence.

He just… wasn't there. If anyone should be seen as untrustworthy, it was Dean.

The door creaked open and Sam poked his head in.

"What do you want, Sam?" Dean asked.

Sam stepped in the room and closed the door behind him. "I just thought that we should talk through what you said before we spend over twenty hours in a car tomorrow. Bobby said that now isn't the time to be arguing with each other."

Dean ran a hand down his face, feeling a headache start to form. "We don't have to argue about this."

"I think we have to at least talk about it," Sam said. "I know that's never been your thing, and it hasn't been my thing either lately, but I don't want to spend my last months with _this_ between us."

"How can you talk about going to Hell so calmly?" Dean asked. He wanted to be angry, but Sam had a decent point. He didn't want their last months to be filled with harsh words and bitter attitudes towards each other.

Sam shrugged and took a seat on the cot he'd been using. "Sometimes, it hits me and I'm terrified. Like I'm just realizing the gravity of the situation I got myself in. Other times, it's still months away and I can ignore it. Just… pretend that it can be dealt with later or pretend that it's an appointment that I can cancel."

"Sam, this isn't something you can wish away, and six months isn't that long," Dean said. "In less than a year, you'll be…"

He felt his internal grip on his emotions almost slip for a second. Thinking about Sam not only dying, but being dragged to Hell, wasn't easy.

It was the worst fucking thing that had happened to him, and he was powerless to do anything that could fix it.

Sam cleared his throat. "If it's not a trust issue, then what is it?" he asked. "I'm really… I mean, I'd understand why you wouldn't trust me. I don't trust me most of the time, and I haven't been giving you any reasons to think otherwise."

"It's not about trust," Dean said, enunciating each syllable carefully. "It's that you can't seem to stop throwing your life away. Like you want to rush into your already early grave."

Sam turned away to stare at the floor and the desk, anywhere except at Dean, and his skin looked a little paler with each word.

"That's exactly what you want, isn't it?" Dean asked. "You _want_ to die early. You _want_ to just throw your fucking life away."

"What good is it?" Sam asked. "Once we get rid of Azazel, what's the point?"

"What?" Dean asked, unable to get breath into his lungs after hearing Sam's questions. How could he think…?

"Well, I was going to Hell anyway, and at least I could do something useful with my life. We can finally get vengeance for Mom, and then I'll pay my debts for all the wrong I've done. No use in putting it off."

Dean couldn't stop himself from making Sam the victim of another right hook. At this rate, Sam was going to spend his six months with a jaw wired shut because of all the abuse it was taking lately. The force was enough to knock Sam off the edge of the bed to the floor.

"Why do you think so little of your life?" Dean asked. "I get that a lot's happened in your life and a lot of bad things were done to you, but that doesn't mean you have to throw your life away! That doesn't mean you were going to go to Hell or that you were worthless."

Dean grabbed two fistfuls of Sam's shirt and pulled him to his feet.

"No matter how you feel about yourself, you are the most important thing in my life," Dean said. "It's not hunting or even getting revenge on the bastard that killed Mom. It's not Dad or his orders or a pretty woman at the bar whose name I'll never remember. It's _you_. And I've been watching you die on the inside for years now, but I can't just stand by and watch you die for real. I can't let you get dragged to Hell without trying to stop it first. I just wish that you'd try to fight, too."

He saw the tears shining in Sam's eyes and saw his lip quiver ever so slightly, and he knew that he had to be getting through to him.

"I don't want to die, Dean," Sam said. "But I didn't want to be a burden to everyone anymore. I wanted to help for once."

Dean pulled Sam close. Sam might be taller, but he still rested his head on Dean's shoulder, and Dean didn't mind it anymore now than he did when they were younger.

He wanted to assure Sam that he wouldn't die. He wanted to assure Sam that he would find a way to fix this mess and free Sam from his deal.

"You could've just gotten me a case of beer if you wanted to help," Dean said with a choked laugh.

He could almost feel Sam roll his eyes, but it was hard to find humor in anything when they could both feel time slipping between their fingers.

Once they killed the yellow eyed demon, he'd do whatever it took to save Sam from his deal. If he couldn't get him out of it, then he'd do whatever it took to drag him out of Hell.

If there was a way, he was going to find it.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** A much needed talk between Sam and Dean as Sam's time continues to dwindle. Neither are ready to face it, and they have Azazel to deal with besides, but it isn't a choice to ignore his deal completely.

As always, thank you for the reads, reviews, follows, and favorites!

Please leave a review before you go.


	16. A Small Victory

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Spending more than twenty hours together in a car had been rough on both of them. Dean wanted to talk about things Sam wanted to forget. Sam wanted to stare out the window and sort through his own thoughts in silence.

He knew that Dean was trying to make up for the years he wasn't there for Sam, but it didn't matter. Not to Sam, who had numbered days anyway.

Dean asked him about his days and what the therapy program was like. What he did. He broke up his questions with comments that he should have checked out the program first or gone with Sam to it the first few days or at least been around in case Sam needed his support as he got used to something new. He had an endless list of things he blamed himself for, Sam learned, but Sam didn't hold any of it against him.

Then, when he ran out of questions that Sam answered in as few words as possible, he started trying to convince Sam that he didn't have to be the one to go into the house and grab the sword. He'd done enough by getting the hexbag, maybe it was time to let Dean take the lead.

Sam didn't give any concrete responses to Dean's suggestions, but he wasn't going to let Dean go in that house. If it had traps ready for intruders, it would be better for him to go in than Dean, no matter how many times Dean suggested otherwise.

It was the longest road trip of Sam's life.

* * *

They got two motel rooms and some take-out from a diner that couldn't afford to fix their sign so that all the letters lit up instead of half of them. Sam knew it was low quality food when even Dean looked uncertain as to whether he wanted to eat his burger and fries or not.

Sam understood why. The bun looked soggy and the bits of lettuce peeking out were more brown than any shade of green.

Sam's own meal didn't look any more appetizing. He always thought that it was impossible to go wrong with breakfast for dinner, but that shit-hole diner proved him wrong. The pancakes didn't look like pancakes, and they were cold and chewy. He didn't even bother giving the bacon to Dean. It was rubbery with a sheen of grease coating it and as far from crispy as it could get, and he would never expect even his bottomless pit of a brother to eat it.

He was also pretty sure that there was a hair buried between pancakes, but he wasn't up for finding a definite answer to that.

Despite the horrible quality of the food, Sam couldn't shake the feeling during his meals now that each one was one closer to his last meal. Unlike most, he had the great displeasure of knowing exactly which meal would be his last.

The hexbag was a heavy weight in his pocket, and too much of a reminder of things he'd rather forget. Being around Dean wasn't helping; he could almost feel the tension and the sadness under the muted anger radiating from him.

He wondered if he should just make a run for it once they found and killed Azazel. If it would be easier for his family to not have to witness his final days.

"I know the food isn't great, but you should still eat something," Dean said.

"You aren't even eating anything," Sam said. "If you can't stomach this food, how can you expect me to?"

Dean tried, if only for the sake of proving that he _could_ stomach it. But once he swallowed, Sam saw him put visible effort into keeping the food down.

"I'm not sure this is real food," Dean said, pushing his plate away. "You think there's somewhere else still open that we could grab a bite at?"

"Probably, but it's late and we've been on the road all day already."

Dean shrugged and got up, grabbing the keys to the Impala. "Big deal. If anyone deserves a decent meal, it's us."

Sam followed Dean, but he heard what was left unsaid. How many more times would they get a chance to go out and have a decent meal together? How many more times would they get to enjoy something normal?

It was those thoughts that made the emptiness inside him more prominent, more painful, and he wondered if that hole was where his soul once resided.

* * *

Sam took a few deep breaths when the house came into view. He _felt_ the evil surrounding the area, the presence of demons. Worse, he smelled them. He smelled their blood and heard their heartbeats beckoning him.

For a moment, he considered the possibility that it was him the demons should be afraid of, not the other way around. He might not have the means to kill them, but he was willing to drink them dry. As much as the thought revolted him and as vile as he knew it was, that was the truth.

That taste would never leave his mouth, but he wouldn't have to put up with it that much longer.

He walked up the porch stairs and crouched down to pick the door's lock. He was one week down already.

He opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him. He wasn't sure how close of a watch demons kept on the place, but he didn't want to risk exposing himself if one happened to see the door open.

Had he not been a hunter, Sam would have thought that a psychopath lived in that house or that devil worshipers used the space for their rituals. Symbols were drawn on every surface and took up every inch available. Some of them, he recognized. Others, he didn't.

He saw some strings shining in the limited amount of moonlight streaming through the windows. He grabbed his flashlight from the duffle his dad and brother insisted he bring and flicked it on. Each step was taken with careful thought and taken only after he was sure that there were no trip wires or any other visible traps he would trigger.

The house was old and two stories tall with a basement, and Sam didn't know where the sword might be other than somewhere on the property. As he passed by curio cabinets filled with artifacts he could only assume were supernatural and curse boxes sitting untouched with blankets of dust covering them, he wondered what other treasures this hunter collected during his years. If he had more time or if he wasn't in a house that was surrounded by demons, he might take his time looking at everything. He might take a few extra souvenirs.

In his moment of distraction, he felt the floorboards give way when he took a step, too late for him to try and backpedal out of danger. He landed on concrete in a cloud of dust and shards of wood, coughing and bringing his hands up to rub the burn away from his eyes. While he was sore, the pain shooting through his ankle signaled something a little more than bumps and bruises. A sprain at best. A break at worst.

He pushed himself to his feet and bit back any sounds of pain that tried to escape. Unlike the rest of the house, the basement appeared empty of valuable items, instead being decorated with smears of ancient blood and old tools that could be used for draconian acts. Sam didn't know exactly what had been done there, nor did he want to find out.

"Son of a bitch," he mumbled as he started walking towards the stairs, each step making the burn in his ankle worse. Some days, it felt like the world was out to get him.

Given what he knew about his mother's death and the things he'd done, maybe he deserved it.

He stopped at the top of the steps and recomposed himself. Dean was a phone call away, ready to make his way from their rendezvous point and charge into the house and past the demons if he needed to. But he wasn't about to put Dean into that kind of danger because he hurt his ankle. His wasn't about to be more of a burden to his family.

The first floor didn't have many weapons. A few guns and a silver knife, but nothing else. It mostly held objects. Maybe some were for protection while others were cursed.

He dreaded going up another flight of stairs, but he grit his teeth and did it anyway. Because he needed to.

The second floor had to be where the hunter spent most of his time. The first room Sam came across was an office with papers pinned to the walls. Splashes of red interrupted the black and white, red threads pinned to connecting sheets of paper. Sam always knew that hunters tended to be a little more obsessed than the average person, but seeing a room like that always reminded him just how far gone they were compared to people who lived in the dark and obsessed over normal things.

He found more weapons. More guns with silver bullets. Iron knives and canisters of salt. Jugs of water that had rosaries dangled over them.

If his dad had decided to stay in Lawrence, but still hunt, would their house have looked like this? He would've never been able to have friends over, not that he had the chance to growing up anyway. But it would've been different to lie to people everyday knowing that he wasn't going to be free from the web he was weaving in a matter of months.

He hobbled into the master bedroom, running out of rooms to search and still without any swords in his possession.

He started with the trunk at the foot of the bed with a padlock keeping it shut. He took a few guesses at what the combination might be given the information he'd found about the hunter who lived there years ago. Years that might have been important to him.

But there was a reason he was sent into the house and not his dad or his brother. It took less than a minute to heat up the lock until he could just pull it off the trunk. He felt a resonance once he used his power. An echo emanated from inside the trunk. An echo that pierced through him, threatened him.

He opened the trunk and saw only a sheathed sword, even before he shined his flashlight on the hilt and saw the emeralds embedded in it, he knew that he found what he was looking for.

"Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar," Sam said.

He swore the sword hummed at the sound of its name.

He reached down to pull it out, but his hand burned when he wrapped it around the hilt and he had to let go.

He tried again, grabbing the sheath this time. It felt warm to the touch, but it wasn't hot enough to hurt.

He'd make do. Having what he came for, Sam left the house as carefully as he entered it, being especially mindful of the hole left behind when he fell. His pace was slow, hindered by his injured ankle and the warmth radiating from the sword to the point of being uncomfortable, but he kept going. Dad, Dean, and Bobby were fifteen minutes out by foot when he moved at his usual speed. They spaced themselves out to not draw attention from the demons in the area.

If he was lucky he would happen upon Dean, but he was a beggar and couldn't be a chooser.

But why would the sword burn his hand when he touched it? Why was it so warm?

It belonged to King Solomon once upon a time, but he wasn't sure why that would cause the burning. Although, it had been used to kill demons in the past. Did its ability to kill evil make it into a holy weapon?

If it was a holy weapon, could it sense the evil within him? Was it reacting to the demon blood that ran through his veins?

He stopped for a second. He couldn't use the sword.

He _couldn't use the sword_.

He felt the flesh on his palm blistering already and even the night air and pieces of fabric brushing against it left it irritated, at least. There was no way he'd be able to hold the thing for more than a minute. Max.

Dean would gladly take up the role and finish this hunt out for him once they found the demon. Hell, John had to be itching to be the one who finally brought Azazel down.

He kept walking. If he took too long, they'd go in the house looking for him.

By the time he caught sight of the Impala, he wanted nothing more than to sit down and find a pack of ice to soothe his ankle.

"Sammy!?"

Dean pushed off from his spot leaning against the Impala and met Sam halfway.

"Dude, what the hell happened? You look like shit."

"Thanks, Dean," Sam said. He shoved the sword into Dean's hands. "You take this."

"This the sword?"

"Yeah," Sam said.

He walked the rest of the way to the Impala with Dean hovering around him, and opening the door and sitting in the passenger seat felt like the only Heaven he'd be getting.

Dean put the sword in the back seat and asked, "Now, where am I supposed to start with patching you up?"

"I think I sprained my ankle," Sam said.

"Sprained or broke?"

Sam thought over his walk back. It hurt like a bitch, but he'd had enough sprained ankles to know the feel.

"Sprained," Sam said. "A nasty sprain, but I'm pretty sure it's not broken."

Dean pulled off his shoe and sock. His ankle was swollen and shades of purple, but it wasn't anything he hadn't handled before.

"Think you'll make it back to the motel before wrapping it up?"

"I made it back here walking on it. I think I'll live," Sam said. "Cuts and bruises. Nothing too bad."

Dean settled himself in the driver's seat after a quick call to their dad and Bobby, letting them know that Sam was out and had the sword.

As gentle as Dean tried to drive, Sam still felt fresh stabs of pain with every bump and dip.

"I think I burned my hand," Sam said when a particularly nasty bump made him ball it into a fist and send a wave of pain through it.

Dean glanced over at him and slowed down, readying to pull over if need be. Sam avoided rolling his eyes.

"How bad? And how?"

Sam shrugged. "Not bad, but enough to be irritating and hurt if I move it too much, or try to make a fist."

"Do you need me to pull over and look at it?"

"No. Nothing life-threatening. It can wait."

"How'd you burn it?"

"It was weird," Sam said. "When I touched the hilt of the sword, it burned my hand. I could hold it by the sheath, but it was still really warm."

"What? Why?" Dean asked. "I didn't feel anything."

"I have a few ideas, but nothing certain," Sam said. "Well, other than the fact that I don't think that I'll be able to be the one who uses it to finish Azazel once and for all."

"That's not a problem. I've been waiting nineteen years to get my chance to waste that bastard. You've done enough already. By the way, how'd you hurt your ankle? You didn't say."

"Part of the floor wasn't as sturdy as I hoped," Sam said. "I fell into the basement."

"Sam, you could've really hurt yourself. Did you think any of this through? From getting the hexbag to getting the sword?"

"I get it, Dean. I've messed up a lot, but I can't exactly go back and change it."

"I know," Dean said. He smacked one hand on the steering wheel. "Damn it, Sam, I know that! That's what makes it so hard. We can't change it. No matter how much we want to or how much we try, we _can't_. And I know that, but I'm not ready to accept it. Not now, not ever."

"Dean—"

"Let's just get you back to the motel," Dean said, "and accept one victory in the middle of a war we're losing."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** As always, thank you for the views, reviews, follows, and favorites!


	17. Test Run

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Dean wrapped his ankle tight enough that he wondered how long it would take for him to lose circulation. His palm had already been wrapped with non-stick pads and medical tape. Soon enough, his right arm would be more burn scars than healthy skin.

Dean gave his knee a couple of pats when he finished dressing his ankle and stood up. "Should probably get some ice on that."

"I don't think this place has any," Sam said.

It wasn't the best motel, but it wasn't the worst either. It was mostly clean, the number of mystery stains lower than usual. There were no overpowering rancid smells. Even the carpet looked like it'd been vacuumed in the last month.

Cheap and almost clean, a combination they rarely found.

"I could make a run and grab some from a gas station or something," Dean said.

"I can do it," Bobby said, breaking away from his huddle over the sword with John, like they were trying to figure out what made it special. "Won't take more than twenty minutes."

"Bobby, you don't have to," Dean said.

"It's not a bother," Bobby said. "Like I said, won't take me long to get some ice and haul it back. I think I remember seeing a general store not too far from here that has a pharmacy. They must have some real ice packs I can pick up."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam said.

"Yeah, thanks, Bobby," John said. "We'll see what we can figure out in the meantime."

Bobby shrugged off their thanks. "Figure out something. We can't let this all be a waste of time."

Bobby left, and Sam couldn't help but wonder how they would test a sword that was supposed to have the power to kill demons who were possessing humans. Cases of demonic possession were rare and oftentimes difficult to find, so how much time would they have to spend trying to find one before they tried finding Azazel?

He watched John pick up the sword and unsheathe it. He flipped the blade over in his hands and inspected the blade.

"And this burned you, Sammy?" he asked.

Sam nodded. "When I grabbed the hilt. Even when I grabbed the sheath, it felt really warm."

"I don't feel anything," John said. "We should test it before we go after Azazel with it, though. That's not an oversight we want to risk."

"I don't think any demons will be jumping to volunteer to help us," Dean said.

"Volunteer, no. But we can trap them," John said.

"How?"

"You ever pay attention to the ceiling in Bobby's library?"

"He has something drawn on it," Sam said.

He spent many hours in Bobby's library, staring at the symbol on the ceiling when he needed a break from researching. He asked Bobby about it once a long time ago, shortly after he started living there and noticed it. "It's a symbol from the Key of Solomon. A Devil's Trap, right?"

Solomon's grimoire and a sword that once belonged to him that could kill demons, and apparently hurt anything remotely demonic that came in contact with it.

Could King Solomon have been a hunter back in ancient times? The stories said he was a good man. A man blessed by God with wisdom. Everything a hunter should be, and everything Sam would never be.

"That's right," John confirmed.

"You want to trap a demon to try the sword," Sam said. "Where are we going to get the demon?"

"Think there's still a horde of them hanging out by that house?" Dean asked. "It'd sure make getting their attention and leading them into a trap easier."

Sam didn't like that idea, but he wasn't sure how much weight his opinion on which ideas were good or bad would have. He lost trust in his own views, and he was sure that his family had as well.

Thankfully, John saved him from his internal debate when he said, "I have a different idea."

"What is it?"

John looked at Sam. "We summon a crossroads demon into a trap, and we kill it."

"What if the sword doesn't work?" Dean asked. "I don't want anyone else to lose their soul."

"We let it out of the trap. I'm not sure that any demon would be willing to deal with someone who just tried to kill it."

"Let's say that the sword works and all that. If we kill the demon who made the deal with Sam, does it end the deal?" Dean asked.

"I don't know, Dean," John said. He looked between both of them, more genuinely sad than Sam had ever seen before. "I wish I had all the answers, but I just don't know. One thing at a time, son."

It wasn't something that Sam let himself think of before, but the idea that his deal could be undone—despite there being no certainty—was enticing.

What if he didn't have to go to Hell? What if he could rewrite his future for himself, without the intervention of demons or monsters?

"We can work out the details back at Bobby's," John said. "No need to stay here now that we've got what we were looking for."

* * *

 _Sam was alone. He was at Bobby's, but no matter how many times he searched, he couldn't find anyone else in the house or out in the yard._

 _Something wasn't right. He felt his panic rising, but there was a logical part of his brain saying that he was fine. That being alone didn't mean he needed to be afraid. This wasn't real loneliness, just an illusion of it._

" _Call to me."_

 _Azazel._

" _You don't need to hide."_

 _He was dreaming._

" _I don't need_ you _," Sam said._

" _I know you feel like a freak, but I would never think of you as a monster," he said. "You're everything you're meant to be, and I know you want what's in my veins. I know you've acquired a taste for it."_

" _No, I don't need it anymore," Sam said. "I got it out of my system."_

" _Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"_

 _A stream of Latin flowed from Sam's mouth. Phrases he didn't know in an order he didn't understand. Once he reached the end, it started over. Pouring from his mouth until his muscles memorized every word. Every syllable._

" _That's all you have to say," Azazel said. "I can take you home."_

 _Sam looked around him, taking in the dream version of Bobby's house, a perfect replication down to the smallest details. He lived there for two years, longer than anywhere before. If his home was a place, it was there._

 _He had no idea what sort of 'home' Azazel would take him to. He just knew that it wouldn't be somewhere pleasant. It wouldn't be somewhere he liked._

He woke up with Latin still spilling from his lips. The motel room was dark, and he heard Dean's deep, even breaths from the other bed.

He sat up in bed and flicked on the lamp beside him.

"Dean?"

Dean groaned and rolled over, eyes opened to slits. "What? It's the middle of the night, Sammy."

"Remember when I told you that Azazel used to enter my dreams?"

That got his attention. Dean rubbed his eyes and sat up. "Yeah," he said. He had that tone in his voice that meant he wanted Sam to elaborate, but he already had a good idea of what came next.

"He was… I just…"

"Did you dream about him?"

Sam nodded. He didn't realize how much he missed Dean being able to hear what he didn't say until he wasn't in constant contact with him anymore. He never realized how much he appreciated being able to talk to someone about anything, especially things that would otherwise keep him up at night, alone in the darkness.

"What did he want?"

"I don't know," Sam said. "He didn't make much sense, just said something about calling to him and letting him take me home."

"Home?" Dean asked. "Your home is with me and Dad and Bobby. _Not_ with a demon."

"That's not all."

"Well, might as well spill the rest, then."

Sam took a few deep breaths. "He, uh, forced me to recite something in Latin. I'm not sure what it is, but it won't stop repeating in my head."

"Something like what?"

"I don't know. He said that I have to say it, and he'll take me home," Sam said. "I don't understand it, but just… don't tell Dad. Not yet."

Dean was silent long enough that Sam wondered if he was going to protest or insist that Sam tell their dad. Instead, he nodded a few times. "Okay. I won't. But if it happens again…"

"Yeah, I know. Just for now. Just until we can get back to Bobby's and I can try to decipher what he had me say."

Dean grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. "I'm guessing you aren't planning on going back to sleep."

Sam shook his head.

"Well, lucky for you, I think we'll have our choice of infomercials to watch until Dad and Bobby get up and come knocking."

Dean settled on a channel showcasing a towel that claimed to be more absorbent than the average towel, using wanna-be actors in ridiculous situations to demonstrate its supposed effectiveness.

Sam let the drone of it fill the room for a while. "Hey, Dean?"

"What?"

"Thanks."

He didn't feel the need to elaborate. He knew that Dean understood what he meant.

He watched Dean nod, then try to fight a grin that broke out across his face anyway.

"Anytime, Sammy."

* * *

They started the trip back to Bobby's house the next day, but didn't arrive until the day after. Sam tried to just suck it up for as long as he could, but eventually the pain in his ankle from the jostling and not being able to properly elevate it (his legs were far too long these days) and ice it became too much.

No matter how much he tried to hide it, Dean could tell he was in pain and uncomfortable.

He stayed with Sam most of the time at Bobby's while their dad and Bobby rounded up the ingredients to summon another crossroads demon. Unfortunately for them, Sam didn't have a spare black cat's bone sitting around.

And, as John said, where the hell were they supposed to find a black cow to milk as a replacement?

"You're walking around better now," Dean said.

Sam nodded, but still sat on the couch and swung his leg up onto it as well. "Yeah. As long as I don't go overboard, it seems almost normal."

"That's good."

Dean slipped into the kitchen for a minute to grab a soda for himself and Sam. As much as he wanted a beer, alcohol still seemed to be scarce around Sam, and he wasn't about to risk bringing up memories. They didn't need any more to deal with than they already had.

"Dean, do you think it could work?" Sam asked as he opened his drink. "Killing the demon who made my deal to end the deal?"

"I don't know," Dean said. "I'm sure as hell gonna try, though."

And if that didn't work, then he'd find something else to try. He'd keep trying with every minute he had until Sam's deal came due, and even after that. If he couldn't prevent Sam from going to Hell, then he'd pull him out himself. No way he would let Sam burn for eternity until he was nothing but a black-eyed monster.

"I know you will."

"That bastard still haunting your dreams?"

"Actually, no. Not since the night I told you," Sam said. "The problem is that his presence has always been sporadic."

"Just tell me if it happens again."

"Yeah, Dean. I will."

Dean gave him a few pats on the shoulder. He didn't know how Sam could appear to be holding up so well. With everything that happened to him in the past, and the future he had to face, no one would have faulted him for cracking under all that pressure.

Instead, Sam continued to prove the sheer amount of inner strength he possessed.

He might not say the words, but Dean was proud of his little brother.

* * *

He didn't want Sam to be there. He would've given anything to convince Sam to stay back at Bobby's when they actually went to test the sword.

But Sam was stubborn and Sam was _Sam_ , so of course he stood beside them to make up part of a semi-circle.

It'd been days since they arrived at Bobby's, and John and Bobby finished their scavenger hunt. Sam was walking better and said that his ankle barely hurt at all anymore. Dean was just glad that they avoided it being broken. A sprain might have stolen a few days, but a broken ankle would have stolen weeks that Sam didn't have to spare.

The Devil's Trap they drew on the crossroads was fairly large and right in the center, but much less elaborate than the one that adorned the ceiling of Bobby's library (which Dean spent too much time staring at when him and Sam researched anything they could find about demons and demon deals).

It was John who held the sword and put his picture in the old metal lunchbox that they buried. Dean didn't like that any of them had their picture in that box. He didn't like that they were summoning a demon that loved slating souls for a trip to Hell.

He hated that it was the same situation that Sam was in alone not long ago.

The demon that appeared was a young woman. Dean would've been attracted to her, if she wasn't an evil Hell-bitch. The way her eyes flickered red only reinforced that.

"Quite the welcome party," she said. "To what do I owe the honor?"

When John raised the sword, the demon recoiled.

"Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar? Where did you get that?" she yelled. Her voice had lost its sultry tone and had filled with unbridled rage instead.

"I imagine you know where it's from," John said. "Plenty of your friends were keeping a pretty close eye on it, weren't they?"

The demon threw her head back and opened her mouth, but nothing happened. Confusion overtook her anger and she looked at the ground. At the Devil's Trap.

"No! No, this can't be happening!"

Any doubts Dean had about that sword being able to kill demons were dispersed as he watched the demon react to it. Why else would she be so afraid of a weapon unless it could hurt her?

"Hey," Dean said. "We have some questions that we want answered, and maybe we'll let you go."

"You won't," she said. "You're liars. All of you."

"I don't think that you have much of a choice," John said.

"Were you the demon who made a deal with him?" Dean asked, jerking his head towards Sam, who stood next to him.

"No," she said. "Believe me, if I managed to cut a deal with a Winchester, I wouldn't have to do this shit anymore. The promotions I would get, well, it's a demon's dream. And I haven't heard of any Winchester deals going down."

She looked at each of them in turn. "Oh, don't be so surprised. You Winchesters are a hot topic in Hell." She stared at Bobby for a long minute. "I don't know who you are, though."

Bobby shrugged. "Don't bother me none. The only black-eyed bitch who wronged me was taken care of years ago."

"Can deals be broken once they're made?" Dean asked.

"All sales are final. No exchanges or returns."

Dean shook his head. She had to be lying. Demons did that. There had to be some way to free Sam from his deal.

Any alternative was unacceptable.

"Can I go now? I'd like to find a real customer to deal with. Quotas to meet and all that."

John gripped the sword with both hands and walked towards the demon. She stepped back in time with each of his steps forward, but when she reached the edge of the trap, she had nowhere else to go.

He drove the blade through her heart, and cackling yellow light spread through her body like jagged branches of lightning. Then, the light-show died down and her body slumped. John pushed her off the blade and she fell to the ground.

"It worked," Sam said. "I can't believe it. It really worked, Dean."

Dean nodded, feeling numb. He didn't doubt Sam's research abilities, and he knew that everything pointed to that sword being able to kill demons. But hearing about it and witnessing it were two different things.

The girl was dead, but not many people survived being possessed by demons. And some sacrifices had to be made. The greater good and all that.

"Well, I'll be damned," Bobby said. "Nice work finding this thing, Sam."

John looked over at Sam and Dean. "Looks like we have our weapon, boys. Bobby's right, you did some nice work finding this thing, Sammy."

Sam ducked his head so that his hair hid his face, and Dean tried to remember the last time that Sam received such open praise from their father.

Dean wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders before he pulled him into a hug.

"We did it," he said. "We can kill a demon. We fucking did it, Sam."

It was just a test run, but it was also confirmation that they were one step closer to being able to kill Azazel, the demon who killed their mom and messed with Sam's head. The demon who got Sam hooked on demon blood without him knowing.

They still had a lot to deal with, including finding a way to save Sam from Hell, but this was a start.

One battle at a time.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** A little bit of hope for Winchester and Co. As always, thank you for the views, reviews, follows, and favorites!


	18. The Binding Link

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

 _He saw pairs of yellow eyes hidden within the forest around him, peering at him from between leaves and within bushes. Some pairs had glints of amusement in them. Others had hints of rage._

 _All of them were directed at him._

" _Sam."_

" _Sammy."_

" _Sam."_

 _He heard his name called from all directions in the voices of both men and women. They were nothing more than whispers, like the rustling of leaves carried on the wind. Some of the voices were more insistent than others, trying to demand his attention, even if he couldn't see their source. Other voices were soft, almost sad. He imagined that one of those melancholy voices was his mother's voice, and he couldn't blame her for being disappointed in him._

 _If not for his existence, she would be alive._

 _Dew-dampened grass bowed beneath his feet as he took one step after another, having no idea as to where he needed to go. So, he kept moving forward. He kept moving through a barrage of voices calling to him, like he was supposed to know what they wanted._

" _Come back to me."_

"Sam?"

Sam sat straight up and found himself staring at Dean, who had an arm halfway extended towards him.

"Hmm? What?"

"I just thought that you'd like to go sleep in an actual bed if you're going to sleep," Dean said. "Because your spine is not going to be happy with you if you spend the night splayed half across the desk."

Sam looked at the desk he'd fallen asleep at, covered in ancient books and loose pages thoroughly coated with his scrawling penmanship, including one page which had the Latin that Azazel forced him to recite written out.

He was doing his best to translate it, but that task was proving more difficult than he originally thought. Whatever it was that he recited, it was ancient. Powerful.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep," he said. Because it was the truth, he had planned to stay up through the night. He didn't want to face the twisted dreams (that he could tell were something a little more than _dreams_ ) that seemed to haunt him any time he closed his eyes and tried to get a bit of rest.

"Well, you did," Dean said. "And I know you haven't been sleeping well since we found out your sword works. Hell, you haven't regularly slept well in years. But why not take a break and try to get some real rest?"

"I have to figure out what Azazel made me recite in my sleep. I'm running out of time, and I want to be there when you guys face off against him."

Dean took a deep breath and released it slowly, the same thing he used to do when they were both kids and Sam was on the verge of asking one too many questions. Dean would always take a deep breath, and slowly exhale just to keep himself in check.

"Sam, that demon we tested the sword on had never even heard about your deal," Dean said. "Are you sure that it's all said and done? Maybe we finally had a stroke of good luck and you aren't on your way to Hell."

Sam shook his head. "The fact that she _didn't_ know about the deal means that the demon who made it is keeping up her end of it. I asked for secrecy, too. It's why I only got six months."

"Secrecy for what?" Dean asked. Even in the dim lighting of Bobby's office, Sam saw new shadows cross Dean's face at the revelation that the deal was in effect and working. He saw the small bit of hope Dean held onto since they killed the demon fade away, leaving emptiness and desperation behind.

It wasn't the truth that people wanted to hear. They wanted lies upon which they could build their false realities.

"If Azazel found out that I made any sort of deal, I know he'd go after you or Dad or Bobby," Sam said. "I didn't want to be the one who painted targets on all of you."

"I don't know if you noticed it, Sam, but all of us already have targets painted on us." Dean pulled him from the chair and corralled him to the bedroom they shared, like they were children again. "But we can worry about all of that later. Just get some sleep for now."

Sam settled into his bed. Having Dean around again made him forget that Dean had ever left in the first place. It made him forget that he'd gone nearly a year without seeing his brother, because now he couldn't imagine such a thing.

But an eternity without Dean was in his near future.

The rest of the night was filled with fitful bouts of sleep that all had one thing in common: Hell.

* * *

In the morning, he didn't feel much better than if he had spent the night hunched over on a desk. He still had kinks in his neck and back and aches in his muscles.

No amount of hot coffee could chase away the discomfort and weariness that shrouded him.

"You're moving like a little old grandmother," Dean said. "You sure you don't want to try resting instead of diving back into your research headfirst?"

"I told you yesterday, Dean, I don't have the time for breaks like that."

It was silent during the minute it took Dean to pour himself a cup of coffee and take a long drink from it. A minute that was filled with him being scrutinized by Dean to the point that Sam wondered if he could see the hellfire that lingered in his mind, a remnant of his nightmares.

"Is he still bothering you in your dreams?" he asked.

Dean didn't need to be any more specific than that. Sam understood.

And he hesitated, but then said, "Yeah, he is."

Dean deserved that truth after all the lies and secrets Sam kept from him for so long.

"I still think we should tell Dad about this."

"I know," Sam said. "But I don't think that it's the best idea. He'll put me under lockdown, Dean. You know that."

"What's wrong with that?" Dean asked. "Maybe it would be better to put you on lockdown and keep you safe if you have the _demon who killed our mother_ stalking your dreams."

"He can't physically find me if I have the hexbag with me," Sam said. "I'm not in danger of anything other than losing sleep. Please, Dean. Maybe I'll find out something useful in one of my dreams. Something that could help us."

Dean didn't say anything else for a while, long enough that Sam wasn't sure he'd say anything else at all.

"Fine," he said. "But you owe me for this."

Sam wasn't sure what he had to give Dean. Time continued to dwindle down for him, and he wouldn't even make it to see next Christmas (not that they were big on celebrating things like that, but still).

Maybe Dean realized that. Maybe he didn't. But Sam saw determination in his eyes and could only wonder as to what Dean wanted from him.

But he nodded anyway. He owed Dean for more than just that, when he thought about.

He owed Dean everything.

* * *

"Huh."

"What?" Sam asked.

He lied on the floor of Bobby's office, forcing his eyes to stay open even when they kept slipping shut in protest. More of the words he had to recite in his dream were making sense, but he didn't have enough to show him the big picture yet.

"There's a symbol that's said to be capable of trapping a demon within its vessel. If the symbol is on the vessel, that is," Bobby said. "And it's not just in this book. I've been looking for it in books from different cultures all night, and almost all of them have the same one. The descriptions and names are a little different, but the main idea stays the same."

"Locking a demon in its vessel?" Sam asked.

They were the only two left awake in the house, Dean half on the couch after his best attempt to stay up and watch infomercials (the only thing on TV so late at night) so that he could keep an eye on Sam. John knew his limits, and he knew when to push past them and when to give in.

"That's what I said."

"Doesn't that seem a little far-fetched?" Sam asked.

Bobby half-laughed, half-snorted. "And a sword that can kill demons doesn't?"

That got a smile out of Sam, but it didn't last long. "I don't think any demon would stand still and let us put a symbol like that on them."

"I guess I'm taking a page out of your book when I say that we'll deal with the details when we get to them," Bobby said. "Besides, it's not like we have to use the thing. It's just… not the worst idea to keep it in mind. To have back-up plans and some aces up our sleeves."

Sam got up and looked at the symbol over Bobby's shoulder, finding it to be surprisingly simple. A circle with a straight line that cut through it.

"It's called a binding link."

Sam tried to rub some of the ache from his eyes, the dry burn that came from a severe lack of sleep. There was no time for sleeping, not when he was marking off each day with a red 'x' until he came to the one marked 'Hell'.

But it was no secret that he needed some rest, and Bobby bookmarked the page of his book that had the binding link in it with a torn scrap of paper before he closed it.

"But we can look at it more after a good night's sleep," Bobby said. He stood from his chair and stretched. "Best wake up that brother of yours, too. Unless you want to spend the day tomorrow listening to him complain about his aches and pains from falling asleep like that."

Dean was a tangle of limbs on the couch, which was too small for a grown man to lie comfortably on in the first place, and Sam knew that Bobby was right.

Sam closed the distance to Dean in a few steps and shook his shoulder until he woke up.

Dean sat up and looked at him, then at Bobby, who was turning the chaos of his office into an organized chaos that they could return to the next day. "You two done?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "You probably want to switch to a bed."

Dean nodded, and they all made their way to proper beds, stumbling like drunk men as they walked.

Sam settled himself for the night, hearing Dean's deep breathing from the opposite bed in the room after he quickly returned to sleep once his head hit his pillow.

Sleep didn't find him nearly as quick as it did Dean. He stared at the dark ceiling and marveled at the simplicity of living at Bobby's like this. He wasn't reeling as badly from his experiences as a slave, like when he first started living with Bobby, and Dean and John were there with him for the foreseeable future.

The normalcy of it (as close to 'normal' as he would ever come) left a physical ache in his chest. It brought a sense of loneliness and longing with it, and the knowledge that he would be removed from this picture soon did nothing to help dull those feelings.

He curled onto his side and faced the wall. Maybe it was childish, but he almost wished he was fifteen again, with his world shaken and support never far away. Vulnerable and allowed to reach out for comfort without seeming weak. Without seeming like a failure.

Well, his world was shaken again, this time of his own doing. When he thought back over the months he spent following a demon's commands, he couldn't recognize himself. He didn't know how many of his actions were the combined influence of the demon and his blood, and how many of them were from his own misguided beliefs. His own misguided sense of justice and vengeance.

Regardless of how he started on it, the path he was on had only one end: Hell.

And he was scared. There was no redo. No take-backs. No choices.

He tried to keep himself calm and control the hitches in his breathing as thinking about his future left his heart racing, emptied his lungs, and turned his blood cold. He shook in the darkness and wanted to yell at the unfairness of it all. He wanted to yell that he hadn't been in a proper state of mind at the time, and hadn't been thinking clearly for years now. But yelling wouldn't help him or anyone else. Besides, his tongue was twisted and couldn't form the words anyway.

There were no second chances for him. Once his time was up, he would never see Dean again. Or his dad. Or Bobby. Pastor Jim. None of them.

The realization of the consequences of his actions hit him harder than ever before in the darkness of his room. The realization of what making a deal with a demon really meant. And once his mind started thinking about it, he couldn't stop it from spitting out scenarios about his future, each one worse than the one before it.

He didn't want to go to Hell.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sam is starting to realize how badly he messed up and get scared of what he's done.

As always, thanks for the views, reviews, follows, and favorites!


	19. Sleep a Spell

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

It took two more weeks for him to straighten out the spell (he knew it was a spell now, it couldn't be anything else) that the demon forced him to recite in his sleep. Once he figured out that some of the words were wrong and were not words at all, likely lost between sleeping and waking, while other words were slightly off in that he wrote them as he remembered them (which he hadn't remembered them all correctly), the process became easier and he looked for 'something close' instead of 'exactly the same'.

He made progress from there over those two weeks, and being absorbed in working took his mind off of the demons who haunted him in the night and the nightmares of the knowledge that his hourglass' sand was slipping through his fingers without a thing he could do about it.

Dean seemed to be having an even more difficult time dealing with Sam's fate. His smiles had become twisted and unhappy. Masks that were easy to see through. He treated Sam similarly to how he treated him in the months after they got him out of Liu's club (and even if he was dead, the thought of just his name was enough to make Sam's blood boil). Anything he thought Sam might need or want, he got without asking first. He hovered, never letting Sam out of his sight for too long.

He tried to make jokes and keep things lighthearted, but they were nothing more than a thin veneer over his inner misery, and Sam saw through that, too. Sam couldn't bring himself to say to Dean that he didn't have to pretend to be okay. He didn't have to pretend to be strong.

Sam couldn't say any of that, because he was pretending to be strong, too.

And sometimes, it was easy to see that Dean wasn't handling their situation well. Sometimes, his mask slipped and he didn't try to hide how he was handling all of it. How could anyone handle the knowledge of going, or knowing someone who would be going, to Hell?

Other times, Dean didn't hide his distress. When he became too frustrated from helping with the research about Azazel, psychics, holy weapons, and demons in general, he sat on the couch (Sam knew it was to keep him in his line of sight) with his hands clasping each other so tightly, his knuckles were white. He bobbed his leg on the ball of his foot, staring at the wall like it had all their answers.

In the middle of the night, long after Sam settled for bed, but was nowhere close to being asleep, he would hear Dean slip out of the room. When he came back (hours later or maybe less, Sam wasn't keeping track), the faint scent of whiskey followed him. Although it made Sam's stomach roll and twist itself into knots and ghost touches trail over his skin, he didn't say anything. He pretended to be asleep and let Dean have the escape of alcohol that he so desperately needed.

He deserved that much.

John was different. He proved that he could track demons better than anyone else there, having been able to pick up on patterns no one else recognized after months of grueling work to find the connections. It was difficult to tell what he thought about everything that was going on. He didn't yell. He didn't even comment on most things. He spent his days trying to track down Azazel's location, fueled by the knowledge that he was so close to finding the thing that killed his wife and tormented his son for so long.

He was in full hunter mode, doing what needed to be done and storing his emotions about the hunt within himself.

But he would rest his hand on Sam's shoulder for a moment with a nod and an expression that Sam couldn't fully read. He said with actions the things that he couldn't say with words.

That he was there.

That he didn't want to lose Sam.

That they would pull through this somehow.

No one would argue that John was Father of the Year material, but that didn't mean he didn't care. He loved his children as much as a broken man could.

And Sam stared at the pages in front of him, a half-translated spell written out and taunting him. While he didn't know what the spell did just yet, he knew it was important. He could _feel_ that importance, like the paper with the Latin hummed beneath his fingers when he touched it.

He could also feel the heat of hellfire on the back of his neck.

Less than five months left.

* * *

"Holy shit," Sam said.

"What?"

Dean was hovering over his shoulder in record time, trying to figure out what was going on before Sam told him.

"It's a summoning spell," Sam said. "That thing that the demon had me recite in my sleep is exactly what we need to _summon him_."

Sam laughed, a sound that bordered hysteria (he was exhausted and so bogged down by negativity, that he _needed_ this one win). He finally had an answer. He finally solved the puzzle that was tossed onto his lap, and it was more than he could have hoped for.

It was the biggest piece of their solution.

"Okay," Dean said, "but why? I mean, why would Azazel _want_ you to summon him? That doesn't make any sense."

Sam thought back over his dreams, and once he did, it was easy to figure out why Azazel had given this spell to him. He thought that they were still on the same side, or, at least, could be on the same side. Like he was being kept at Bobby's by his family against his will.

Like he needed the demonic poison that'd been force-fed to him.

"He thinks I'm still craving his blood. That I'll crawl back to him like I'm being trapped here. Like I feel like a prisoner," Sam said.

"Do you?"

"What?"

"Do you still crave demon blood?" Dean asked.

Sam pursed his lips into a thin line and looked down at his translated version of the spell with a new intensity to avoid Dean's eyes. He didn't answer because _yes_. Yes, he still craved blood. He woke up in the morning with the taste of it on his tongue. Sometimes, even water tasted sour in his mouth because it wasn't what he wanted to drink.

"Sam?"

Dean only let the silence last for a few seconds before he spoke again.

"Goddamn it, Sam," he said. He paced across the small space of Bobby's office twice, and Sam watched him. "Well, do you feel like a prisoner, too? Is he right about that?"

Sam shook his head. Then, he thought about it.

"Maybe at first," he said. "But I was coming down from my high on demon blood, and I wasn't thinking straight."

"I don't think you've been able to think straight in years."

The corners of Sam's mouth twitched up into a smile that he tried—to no avail—to fight. "Yeah," he said. "I think you're right."

"How sure are you that the spell will work?" Dean asked, sitting heavily back in the chair he vacated.

"As sure as I can be," he said. "As sure as I was about the sword."

"We really need to tell Dad now. About all of this," Dean said.

John had never given him a reason to be afraid. In fact, John had shown love towards his children in the only ways he knew how, but the man himself was large and intimidating. Stern and easy to anger or disappoint. Facing him with news that carried the same magnitude as Sam's left him uneasy. Nervous. John never raised a hand to hit him, but his words, when sharpened with anger, hurt all the same. Whether he meant for them to cut, or not.

Sam took a deep breath and held it in his lungs until they hurt. Then, he exhaled, slow and shaky, and nodded. "I know."

"I'll be there with you," Dean added.

Sam knew that, too.

* * *

They sat at Bobby's kitchen table. Dean sat next to him. Their father sat on the other side. Bobby excused himself to run errands in town. He knew when it was a conversation he didn't want to be sitting in on.

The lapse of conversation scared him more than explaining the dreams he'd been having and the piece of paper that sat in the middle of the table. He felt like a kid waiting to be scolded, head bowed and focus on his hands instead of looking at his father.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" John asked.

He didn't sound angry, which Sam had been expecting. He sounded tired. No, not just tired. Exhausted. About as sick of the entire situation as Sam felt.

Sam shrugged and opened and closed his mouth several times, but the half-truths that his brain formed where never spoken aloud. So, he settled with saying, "You would have locked me in the panic room."

"You should have trusted me," John said.

"Would _you_ have trusted _me_?"

"Okay," Dean said. "That's enough. It's over now, and we can't change that we hid it from you. But I think that Sam got something really valuable out of this, Dad. That spell, if it works, is the answer we needed. It's the end to the hunt we've been on for, what, eighteen and a half years?"

"Don't get too excited, Dean," John said. "This demon—this Azazel—is one hell of a crafty demon. If we don't come up with a perfect plan, well, I can't imagine that this hunt will have a pretty ending."

John kept his voice even and his words reasonable, but Sam saw a shift in his expression. A softening, but a hardening, too. A combination of hope and vengeful determination. There was finally light at the end of a very long tunnel for him, and Sam saw it, too.

Only for Sam, that light came in the form of fire.

Was it all worth it? This crusade for a demon who killed the mother he never knew?

As more days passed, he found himself pondering those big picture questions. Most people didn't have the luxury of knowing the exact day they would die. Most people were lucky. They got to avoid the questions that he could never answer that came along with facing his mortality.

How would it have all been different if John hadn't pursued hunting? If he just accepted the official decision that the fire was an accident, the result of faulty wiring?

When John cleared his throat, Sam was pulled back to reality from his thoughts, not that either one was more pleasant than the other. John took the paper with Sam's translation of the spell on it from the table.

"I'll take a look at this," he said. "You should get some sleep, Sam."

"It's the middle of the day," Sam said.

"I know, and I also know that you've sacrificed a lot of sleep to translate this. Besides, when have hunters ever kept normal schedules?"

"I…"

Sam let his words fade without finishing that thought. He didn't want to admit to his father that he'd grown afraid of sleeping to an extent, especially now that he had the spell translated and didn't need to let the demon into his head in hopes of getting some sort of clue about the Latin he was forced to learn. He never woke up feeling rested anymore, and he as much as he wanted _real_ sleep, he wasn't sure he could get it until Azazel was good and dead.

And then, well, he was certain that nightmares of Hell would be more than happy to take up the position of being what he saw every time he closed his eyes.

"You can sleep in the panic room," Dean said. "The cot is still made up from last time, and nothing supernatural will be able to reach you."

Because Dean easily slipped back into hearing what Sam didn't say, even with the years they spent apart, and Sam was grateful for that.

Sam nodded, and he stood up, surprised that Dean followed him.

"You're not a prisoner, Sammy," he said. "And I could use a good nap myself. I don't want those demons cracking into my noggin because yours is unavailable."

"Shouldn't you help Dad?"

"I'll be fine," John said. "I'm just going to go through your notes and double check the translation, then try to figure out what we do with it next. You two get some rest for now."

Sam took only two more steps before John stopped him again.

"Sammy," he said.

Sam looked over his shoulder at him.

"I'm proud of you, son. For this, and for so much more."

Sam nodded, turning back to face away from John. He didn't trust himself to speak, wasn't sure that he _could_ speak with the lump in his throat.

John's statement sounded too much like a goodbye, and he wasn't ready to start down that path. He wasn't ready to say the things that needed to be said before he left the world of the living. He didn't want to tie up loose ends. He didn't want to write out a will, as if he had any belongings to pass on.

He still had months left.

He… _only_ had months left.

Dean guided him down the stairs and enclosed both of them in the panic room. If they didn't turn on a light, it was dark enough to be able to comfortably sleep.

And he knew that Dean, who'd already settled himself, wasn't there because he needed a nap. He wanted to keep proving to Sam that he wasn't a prisoner by locking himself in the panic room with him.

From the sound of his breathing, he knew that Dean wasn't asleep. Sam wasn't sure that either of them would fall asleep easily.

"I can't believe how close we are to finally killing that bastard," Dean said. Even in the darkness, it seemed to be as clear to him that Sam wasn't sleeping as it was to Sam that he wasn't sleeping.

Not that such a thing surprised him.

"Yeah."

It was probably his last hunt, and he didn't know how to feel about that idea. When he was younger, getting out of hunting was a faraway dream that occupied his mind for hours. It was something he craved, and the only drug he'd known at the time.

Just not like this.

And then he threw himself into hunting traffickers, whether that was his own choice or the result of demonic influence. After being a victim of trafficking, he lost so much. He was still missing some of the pieces that were taken from him in those months, when it seemed like the world was doing its best to dismantle him.

"And then we'll figure out how to get you out of your deal," Dean said.

"Everyone dies, Dean. You can't stop that." His words were soft, nothing more than whispers. Soft enough that he could hide the fear and the growing resignation. Soft enough that he could keep himself from pouring too much hope into Dean's words.

"Not like this, Sammy," Dean said. "I'm not letting you die like this."

Sam rolled so that he faced the wall, and his back faced everything else. Dean wasn't _letting_ him do anything, and he was fairly certain that Dean couldn't change that if he tried.

As nice as it was to believe that he could escape death for a little longer, that he would live to turn twenty, he knew better than to get his hopes up.

Still, having someone so determined to fight that battle for him, to fight for his soul, gave his world a small bit of light. Just enough to keep him from drowning in the darkness.

"Thank you."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** We're setting up for the end, now.

As always, thank you for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting!


	20. All the Pieces

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Sam sat on the hood of a car that would never run again. An old thing with age that ate away at the pieces that weren't missing. He sat there years ago in the biting chill of winter and talked to Amy about being not quite human because, at the time, he didn't trust his family with that knowledge. He didn't believe that they would make an exception and not hunt him.

If it was supernatural, they killed it.

Although, Amy had been different. She was everything he was taught monsters _aren't._ She understood his problems in a way that his family couldn't, because they didn't know what it felt like to be inhuman (even if Missouri assured them that he was quite human, but simply a psychic).

He no longer knew where Amy was or what she was up to, but he hoped that she was alright. That she was as happy as she could be in a world where neither of them felt like they belonged.

Sam took a deep breath. He'd come outside to try enjoying the warmth of the sun on his pale, pale skin, but his mind wouldn't stop racing from thought to thought.

Looking back, how could his life have fallen apart so easily? So irreparably?

He thought about how different things would have been if he accepted Amy's offer all those years ago and run away. Left it all behind. Met up with Dean somewhere down the line when they were older.

He wouldn't have been trafficked, if that were the case. He might have even been happier, but he didn't know how to let go of his family at that time.

He was pretty sure he still didn't know how to let go of his family.

Just as they didn't know how to let go of him.

He didn't like to think about how they'd handle everything once his deal comes due, but he knew it wouldn't be handled well.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, trying to memorize the scent of fresh air and the feeling of gentle breezes on his skin. All too soon, his life would be filled with the scent of sulfur and the pain of eternal torment at the hands of demons.

As if they hadn't tormented him enough.

* * *

Dean took a deep breath.

Then, another.

And another.

But no matter how many times he repeated that one simple action, he couldn't calm the jittery nerves within him.

The excitement he felt at knowing Azazel's death was so close, and that it would be at their hands, was what he imagined a high felt like. He'd become some kind of vengeance junkie, following the footsteps of his father and brother.

Yet, only half of the jittery feeling in his nerves came from excitement. The rest came from dread, because he knew what they had to address once Azazel was dead: Sam's deal.

He glanced out the window and saw that Sam hadn't moved from his place on the hood of one of the cars in the yard. He looked so sad sitting there, with his face lifted towards the sky and the sunlight illuminating his skin. He looked so defeated… and so young.

Too young to die. Too innocent to go to Hell, regardless of what he'd done under the misguided instructions of a demon who got in his head. A demon who got him hooked on demon blood like it was the heroin of supernatural drugs (and maybe it was).

What he wouldn't give to go back to the time when _he_ was nineteen and Sam was only fifteen. He wouldn't let Sam out of his sight for a damn moment, even if that meant sitting around in a shitty motel that reeked of stale bodily fluids. And he'd do it with a smile on his face because a few days feeling nauseated from the stench in a dirty motel room was better than the alternative that laid ahead for them.

But as much as he wanted to, he couldn't change the past. He couldn't do a damn thing when Sam needed him the most. As much as he hoped that he'd find a way to save Sam from his deal, he wasn't a fool. He knew how unlikely it was that there was a way for him to save Sam.

In the meantime, he wanted to remember that almost-peaceful expression on Sam's face. He wanted to think that Sam had some good times to take with him.

He wanted those memories for himself if, by some miracle, he managed to trade places with Sam.

He hadn't noticed his father's presence until a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and made him jump and turn to face John.

Dean flashed him a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes and it didn't have a touch of joy in it. "Gonna reprimand me for letting someone sneak up on me?"

"We all have a lot on our minds lately," John said. "I can't blame you for getting lost in thought."

Dean returned his attention to Sam through the window. "Do you really think that we can save him from Hell?"

"I don't know, son," John said. "But if there's a way to save him, we're going to find it."

* * *

Sam stared at the picture of the binding link. It looked deceptively simple, and Bobby was right in saying that it was something they should keep in mind. Just in case.

"Sometimes, you boys make the world feel mighty dark," Bobby said, walking in and looking at the symbol from over Sam's shoulder. "And I can't help thinking that if any family could use a bit of light, it's yours."

Sam felt that darkness, too, but he'd felt it since he was a kid. There always seemed to be something that separated him from everyone else. No matter how many schools he attended, he felt like an outsider for more reasons than just being the new kid. He had never been able to explain it, then, but knowing about the demon blood fed to him as a baby and the psychic abilities he hadn't unlocked at the time, he understood it a bit better now.

"Sorry," he said, because there wasn't any other response he could give to Bobby's admission.

"Not your fault," Bobby said. "You boys and your daddy got dealt a rough hand, but God if you haven't played it the best you could."

"I don't think that we've played it the best we could."

Bobby was quiet for a long moment, then said, "I guess it doesn't matter now, but you have that look like you have an idea."

"I do. Sort of."

"Well, let's hear it," Bobby said.

"I mean, I know that I'll have to be the one to summon Azazel, and you guys will have to hide or something. I'm not sure that he'll be able to tell if anyone else is with me, but I'd say it's a good bet he could. He's… he's really strong."

Bobby put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, trying to offer wordless comfort. Sam appreciated the gesture, but thinking back on his memories with Azazel, he started to feel real terror at the idea of facing him with the intent to kill.

"But the hexbag has been working, so I guess one of you guys could use it to hide from him. I was just thinking that if you could find someone who can make a brand that would leave the binding link on his vessel's skin, it would help. What's the point of going through all this if he just abandons ship, you know?"

"I think we can figure out some way to make it," Bobby said. "I've got a lot of scrap metal and a lot of tools."

Sam nodded. "That'd be great. Thanks, Bobby. I… owe you a lot."

Bobby shrugged and took the book with the binding link in it from Sam. "You don't owe me a thing, Sam. It's been nice having you around this place. Makes it a little less lonely."

Sam didn't know what to say to that, either. Staying at Bobby's had been more therapeutic than any program they could have shoved him in. The stability and comfort had been more than he could ask for during a time when both concepts seemed like distant dreams.

And now he would be leaving it all behind. Bobby's house would be that little bit lonelier, because he knew that his dad and brother wouldn't hang around it that long once he was gone. They'd move on, always looking for answers that might not exist.

So, he excused himself.

"I'm a bit tired," he said. "After all the nights of researching and demon-infested dreams. I think I'm going to go lie down in the panic room for a while."

"Sure thing," Bobby said.

Sam felt Bobby's eyes watching him leave. He knew that there was a deep sadness in them that wanted to say something, but they both kept quiet.

Sam didn't go straight to the panic room. Instead, he went upstairs first and into the bathroom, digging through the medicine cabinet. He found an orange bottle that he used to rely on as a kid: prescription sleeping pills. They were old and probably expired, but he really needed a peaceful sleep, and those little pills had been the only reason he'd gotten any nights of rest in the last few years.

He took a few pills, hesitated when it came to putting the bottle back in the cabinet, and then took the bottle with him into the panic room. A few pills now, and—if he needed them—a few pills later.

He shut the panic room door behind him and settled on the cot. It might not be as comfortable as the bed he'd grown accustomed to on the second floor, but it'd been the only bed since he returned with his family that allowed him to _sleep_. And now that he had sleeping pills (which he figured were doing good enough despite their age, as his eyelids felt heavier by the second) the promise of sweet darkness seemed almost too good to be true.

* * *

Dean passed Sam as he came back in the house, but Sam hadn't seemed to so much as notice him as he made his way down the basement stairs. As tempted as he was to follow, he went into Bobby's office instead.

"Sam's gone to take a nap," Bobby said before he asked.

"If anyone needs one, it's him. You know where my dad went?"

He wanted to go after Sam and see if he was okay, but he'd seen the prescription bottle in Sam's hands. He could go and try talking to Sam, but he didn't think he'd be getting much of a response out of him.

"He went out to get the stuff that Sam'll need to summon the demon. Summoning requires a bit more than a bunch of words, most times."

"What are you doing?" Dean asked.

He was itching for something to do. Anything that could help pass the time and take his mind off the inevitable face-off with Azazel. He couldn't shake the bad feeling that settled in his stomach when he thought about confronting the demon who ruined his life. Maybe they should reconsider, but that piece of shit was never going to leave Sam alone until he was dead or had Sam back with him, right?

So, for Sam's sake, he swallowed the apprehension and hoped that his faked confidence would give him real confidence.

"Sam asked if I could make a brand of sorts for the binding link to make sure that demon son of a bitch can't flee his vessel before we kill him."

Dean watched Bobby examined the picture of the binding link, his expression not giving any hints as to how he felt about the task.

"Does any of this leave you with a bad feeling?" he asked.

Bobby shrugged and gave him a quick smile that was bitter. "Anything involving demons leaves me with a bad feeling, but I can't blame you for not liking the idea of this. We're putting Sam right into the line of fire and hoping that the demon still wants him alive. We know that he's one evil bastard, too. There's a lot of risk in this plan, but the thing is, it's the only one we got."

Dean understood that, but he wished they could have found an alternative. He wished they had the time to find an alternative. He wished for so many impossible things, but most of all for it all to be over.

"You, uh, need any help making that?"

"You don't want to go watch Sam sleep, like you have been since all of you showed up here?"

"I don't think Sam will know if I was there or not," Dean said. "I saw him take a bottle of sleeping pills down with him. Must've found them in your medicine cabinet, huh?"

"You aren't worried that he might take too many?"

"No," Dean said, although the suggestion brought back some memories he wasn't particularly fond of. "He's not going to do anything like that. Not with this hunt being so close. Not with how much he wants to be part of this hunt."

Bobby picked up the book and shoved it into Dean's arms. "Then, I guess we have some work to do. Bring that out with you. We'll need it for reference, but I don't think this'll be too tough."

Dean didn't like the idea of creating a brand, not when he was certain he'd never be able to erase the brands on Sam's shoulders from his mind. Time may have helped them fade and soften, but they were too visible on his pale skin the last time Dean caught a glimpse of them (which Sam made sure didn't happen often).

But branding a demon? That was a little more appealing to him, especially when it also meant they'd be keeping him in his vessel long enough to kill him in it.

He just wished that he could be the one who did it, because he didn't want Sam that close to Azazel. But they didn't have another choice.

It had to be Sam.

* * *

A few days later, Sam stood alone in the clearing in the woods. Well, not completely alone. Dean was nearby with the emerald-studded sword and the hexbag, waiting until the right moment to reveal himself and stab Azazel.

Sam didn't know how Dean and their dad decided who would get the honor to finally kill the demon who took so much from them, but John and Bobby were still there. They were far enough away that they wouldn't be concerns to Azazel, whom they hoped would be focusing his attention on Sam, and then on his impending death.

He couldn't believe he was doing this, with a silver bowl stuffed full of herbs and spell ingredients at his feet. He couldn't believe that he had a piece of paper thoroughly covered in Latin in one hand, and a knife to spill his own blood into the bowl in his other hand. He might not have caught that the spell needed more than words to work, but his dad had figured it out when he went through all of Sam's notes and research.

There was a small, welded thing that used to be scrap metal and was reshaped into a makeshift brand. He'd scorched the symbol onto many planks of wood, both to make sure that it made the binding link symbol and that he could still use his pyrokinesis to heat it up (he avoided using his powers whenever possible since he got the demon blood out of his system).

He had everything they thought he needed.

No amount of breathing exercises or mind-relaxation techniques taught to him could calm the racing of his heart beneath his skin. No amount of deep breathing could steady his hands.

He wasn't ready for this.

But he had to be.

He found Dean in the darkness and nodded, waiting to see a barely visible nod in return.

Then, he started the spell.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** No use in delaying the confrontation with Azazel any longer, so here we go!

As always, thank you for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting!


	21. Sam and Azazel

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Sam cleared his throat and started the spell. The words twisted his tongue and lips to form sound combinations he wasn't used to, and he stumbled over the phrases more than he would've liked.

He just had to hope that he would say it close enough to summon Azazel regardless. Hell, he'd found Sam enough times when they worked together without spending much effort in doing so. As long as he didn't have the hexbag on him, Azazel should be on his way to try and collect his prize.

The actual chanting part of the spell was mercifully short, and Sam knelt in front of the silver bowl, digging the knife into his palm and letting his blood drip onto the dried herbs and other ingredients that he couldn't recognize off the top of his head.

Blood. Then, fire. Then, demon.

Why did this all sound more insane each time he ran through it in his mind?

The contents of the bowl lit aflame easily and burned quickly. It took barely any effort from him, and he immediately gripped his hand around the makeshift brand hidden in his pocket once he started the fire.

Any minute, now.

Any… minute…

"Sam."

Sam stood up and spun around. He hadn't expected Azazel to appear behind him, and that put Dean out of position. He'd have to buy him time to sneak around in the wooded area so Azazel wouldn't see him coming.

To do anything else would be a death wish.

"It's good to see you again, Sam," Azazel said, his eyes glowing that same sickly yellow that they always did, but it was more prominent in the dark of night. "I knew you'd get my message. I knew you'd be able to figure it out."

"Yeah," Sam said. "Well, I didn't get it at first, but I did manage to figure it out."

"That's why you're my favorite," he said. He smiled, and Sam felt sick to his stomach seeing it. "You're smart. You use your brain first, and then work from there."

"You always say that I'm your favorite, but you never even explain what that means. Your favorite what?" Sam asked.

He didn't know how long he needed to give Dean, and he couldn't risk looking to try and find where Dean went. Better to keep Azazel distracted until he was sure that enough time had passed that he wouldn't see Dean sneak behind him with the sword.

But he didn't want to wait so long that John and Bobby got close enough for Azazel to start taking active notice of them.

"There's plenty of time for you to learn about that. We don't have to rush," Azazel said.

"Why can't you tell me now?"

"Because you wouldn't understand it just yet. There's so much you have to learn, but don't worry. It will all make sense one day."

If Azazel's words were meant to be soothing, they weren't succeeding. In fact, the more he spoke, the more unnerved Sam grew. He was important? He wouldn't understand what? What the fuck did Azazel want with him?

He wouldn't get those answers. He'd never find out Azazel's master plan, because he took a step closer and reached out to Sam.

Sam reached forward and grabbed onto Azazel's arm, sliding his sleeve up just a bit while he heated the brand in his other hand before bringing it down on the freshly exposed skin. Smoke rose from around the white-hot metal, and he smelled the flesh burning.

 _Sam found it difficult to keep his breathing even. They were going to brand him like an animal._

 _They were going to brand him_ _ _twice__ _. Give him another reminder that his body no longer belonged to him. First the tattoo of a number—his number—and now the brands of his_ _ _owners__ _._

 _It hurt to even think of that word. To think that he was just another person's property (two people, but minor details)._

 _The man took the first branding iron out of the fire when the metal turned white-hot. He walked towards Sam with a grin while Jerry shoved a stick into his mouth._

 _"Bite down," he said._

 _Sam did, but the stick almost fell out of his mouth when the iron touched his shoulder, the pain blinding him until the world was white. He didn't know if he tried to scream, wouldn't have felt the shock collar go off if he had. Not with the sensation of his skin on fire._

 _The immediate wave of agony eased only slightly when the iron was pulled away (Sam swore that odd smell in the room was his burned skin). Before he had time to collect himself, the other iron was pulled out of the fire and pressed against his opposite shoulder._

 _His world faded from white to black when he body decided to grant him the mercy of unconsciousness to spare him from the pain._

He shook himself out of his memories, which were rarely about his branding. Though, if he thought about it, that ranked highly as one of the most physically painful parts of his trafficking experience. But now wasn't a good time to be reliving _any_ past experiences, because Azazel was pulling his arm away and he heard Dean's quick footsteps getting closer.

Unfortunately, Azazel also heard those footsteps. He looked over his shoulder and spotted the sword in Dean's hands. When he threw his head back with his mouth opened wide, nothing happened. That was when the pieces fell together for him and he noticed what, exactly, was now on his arm.

He looked at Sam with pure fury in those yellow eyes, throwing his arm towards Sam and twisting his hand like he was doing something as monotonous as screwing in a light bulb.

Then, there was only darkness.

* * *

Azazel appearing behind Sam instead of in front of him immediately caused them to switch up their plan a bit, but Dean figured he shouldn't have been surprised. When had a plan ever actually gone according to that plan for them?

Sam, at least, had understood that. Dean heard him keeping Azazel occupied with conversation, giving Dean the chance to re-position himself so he'd be behind Azazel, who would kill him before he got anywhere close if he spotted him.

He watched Azazel take a step closer to Sam, then Sam pressed the brand, glowing with heat, against his vessel's arm.

Dean took that as his cue to move forwards with quick, careful steps. He only got one chance to kill Azazel, and he wasn't about to waste it.

He felt a stick crunch under his foot and hoped that Azazel didn't hear it, but his hopes were crushed when yellow eyes turned their focus on him, unusually prominent in the darkness.

No use in trying to hide anymore, so Dean ran as quickly as he could towards Azazel. He could make out his arm raised toward Sam and the twist of his hand. He heard an unsettling crunch, like someone snapped a wet stick over their knee, then he saw Sam fall to the ground.

He only looked back at Dean when the sword pierced his flesh.

"If I can't have him, neither can you," he said, his teeth gritting together as Dean pushed the sword farther into his body.

Branches of energy that mimicked the shape of lightning spread through Azazel's body, originating from the wound to his heart.

Dean pulled the sword out. Everything happened so quickly, it was hard to believe that their nearly two-decade hunt was over.

But he didn't have the time to dwell on that. He patted down each of his pockets in search of his flashlight.

"Sammy?" he asked. "Sammy, you okay?"

He finally found it and turned it on, barely able to hear the rushing footsteps of his dad and Bobby as they closed in.

Once he cast the light on Sam, he couldn't hear anything other than his own blood roaring in his ears.

Sam's head was twisted at an unnatural angle, and his eyes were open, but staring at nothing.

Dean wanted to grab him and hold him close, but every instinct in him was screaming that he knew better than to move someone with a back or neck injury. His instincts were screaming like they thought that this was just an injury that could be fixed. That Sam would be fine again after a trip to the hospital. Maybe he'd have to wear one of those collars around his neck for a while that looked so uncomfortable, but that'd be okay. Dean could handle that.

The logical side of him knew better. This wasn't an injury that he or any doctor could fix. This wasn't something that Sam could bounce back from.

He didn't realize that he was crying until he saw his teardrops fall onto Sam's face.

What he wouldn't give for Sam to start laughing and say it was all a joke. This had to all be a joke. Sam was fine less than a minute ago. He was standing and talking and this all had to be a joke.

It couldn't be real.

He moved his shaking hands until his fingertips were against the pulse point on the side of Sam's neck and waited.

And waited.

"No, no, no, no, no," he said, repeating that one word over and over once it was obvious that there would be no movement beneath his fingertips in the near future (or ever).

He tossed his flashlight to the ground and gripped under Sam's arms, heaving his upper body up to his chest and cradling it. He rocked Sam like it was all just a nightmare, but there were no soft, warm breaths against his neck. There was no rise and fall from the chest pressed against his chest.

There was no heartbeat.

Dean held on tighter, his silent tears turning into painful sobs that made his whole body tremble. He didn't notice his dad and Bobby arrive in the clearing until he felt someone trying to separate him from Sam, but he refused to let go.

"Dean, I need to take a look at Sam," John said.

Dean shook his head. "It doesn't matter. He's dead, Dad. He's… This wasn't worth it."

It took the combined effort of John and Bobby to separate Dean and Sam, and once they did, Dean saw the tears streaking both of their faces, too. He wondered how they weren't completely falling apart like he was, but at the same time, it was more emotion than he'd ever seen openly displayed by either of them.

"What the hell happened?" John asked. "Azazel wanted him _alive_. Dean, what happened?"

Between ragged breaths and hitched words, Dean managed to get out, "If he was going to die, he didn't want Sam alive. I wasn't fast enough. I'm sorry. Sammy, I'm sorry."

He couldn't find the words to explain that Azazel appeared on the wrong side and Sam had to distract him until Dean could relocate in the words to a location behind Azazel. He couldn't explain that his footsteps weren't as careful as they should have been and Azazel heard him coming before he could reach him. That Azazel used that time to kill Sam in retaliation for being tricked.

He felt his father's arms around him, helping him to his feet and dragging him away. Keeping him upright despite his stumbling steps.

"Sam, what about Sam?" Dean asked. "We can't leave him there."

"Bobby's got him," John said. "C'mon. Let's get you back to the car."

"This wasn't worth it," Dean said, his words slurred and almost incoherent in his grief. "Dad, this wasn't worth it. Sammy's… He's…"

"I know," John said, and Dean swore he heard his father's voice crack. "I'm going to fix this, Dean. It'll be okay."

Dean felt himself being pushing into the backseat of the Impala and his dad closed the door to keep him in.

He was alone for a while, uncertain as to where his dad and Bobby were. Until they reappeared with Sam's body being carried between the two of them.

By the time John took his place in the driver's seat and started up the engine, Dean didn't have any more tears to shed. His eyes burned and his stomach was one wrong move away from trying to twist itself inside out by emptying itself with nothing inside it.

"You can't fix this," Dean said. "Nothing can make this okay."

Without Sam, how was he supposed to keep going?

What was the point?

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I'm sorry. I'm not sure what to say about this chapter other than that it is _not_ the final chapter. This is _not_ where the story ends, not yet.

As always, thank you for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting! Our journey is almost over.


	22. Like Father, Like Son

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Dean shut down after Sam's death. He refused to let them burn Sam's body, or even bury it. He drank enough to put any alcoholic to shame, nearly clearing out Bobby's liquor stash.

John didn't want to think about Sam's body rotting away in Bobby's shed, or the fact that, by losing one son, he lost two sons. So, he had his journal in front of him and worked to fill in the empty pages at the back. This wasn't where he thought his journey would end, but now he couldn't see any other ending to his journey.

"Are you sure about this, John?" Bobby asked. "Maybe you two should be working through it instead."

"No amount of 'working through it' will help Dean. Look at him, Bobby. He doesn't know how to function without Sam around. I don't think he even realizes where Sam's soul is. Otherwise, well, I don't want to know what he'd try doing."

They both looked at Dean on the couch in the other room, his thousand-yard stare directed at the wall with an emptied glass in his hand. He didn't eat anymore. The only drinks he seemed willing to swallow were alcoholic. The shadows under his eyes grew darker each day as the rest of his skin grew paler.

He was wasting away before their eyes, and the only person who could help him was dead.

"Do you really think Sam's soul is in Hell? He didn't even get the full six months."

"But he still sold it," John said. "Six months or not, his soul was marked for Hell. And I can't let him stay there."

"You do realize that _you'll_ be the one in Hell then, right?" Bobby asked. "You'll just take his place."

"I know," John said. "And I know that's what the demons want. But I'm not going to break for them. Besides, no parent should outlive their child."

"I know I'm the last person to agree with how you raised those boys, and don't take this the wrong way, but I'm proud of you for this," Bobby said. "I don't know any other parents who'd go to literal Hell for their kids."

John laughed a bit at that, but shook his head. "You can't tell me that you wouldn't have done the same for Karen if you knew then what you know now."

"You know I would've," Bobby said. "If only so that I could apologize to her for the way we left things. I'd tell her anything she wanted to hear."

"So, you understand. And you'll help me? You'll watch out for the boys?"

"You know I will, John," Bobby said. "I've always treated them like they were my own."

John nodded, and it only took one more glance at Dean to reaffirm his decision. He loved both of his boys, even if he had a hard time being the father they deserved. He was doing this as much for Dean and Mary as he was for Sam.

If he were being honest, the thought of Hell didn't scare him. He'd seen a lot in his life, and the one regret he had was that he would no longer be around to try and thwart the demons' plans for Sam. But he had to trust that the information he left behind with Dean and Bobby would be enough.

If he trusted anyone to follow an order that had to do with Sam's well-being, it was Dean.

"I owe you a lot, Bobby. Especially for how much you've done for the boys."

"You don't owe me nothing for that. But I think you should be careful. You're getting soft with all this talk, and you can't afford to take that softness with you."

"Mind seeing if you can get Dean to eat something while I finish this?" John asked.

Bobby nodded, no doubt understanding that John was dismissing him in as nice of a way as he knew how.

He watched as Bobby pulled a pliant Dean from the couch and ushered him to the kitchen, reminded far too much of Sam when they brought him back from China. Unable to function on his own. Unable to pay attention to the world around him and comprehend what was going on.

If he was lucky, Bobby would be able to put some food in front of Dean and he'd eat it without even realizing that he was doing anything at all.

He couldn't let this continue. He couldn't let Dean become a shadow of his former self. Maybe he couldn't be around to stop the plans he'd gathered the demons had for Sam, but he couldn't save Sam from everything. He clearly couldn't save Sam from Azazel, given how many times he'd failed in that aspect.

He could save Sam from Hell, though, and he knew that Mary would forgive him for damning himself if she knew.

And maybe she did. He didn't know the complexities of the afterlife beyond the fact that some souls stayed behind and some souls went to Heaven. If anyone deserved a Heaven, it was Mary. She thought that angels were watching over them, but _she_ was his angel. He just wished he could've had the chance to tell her that.

For the time being, he wrote out very careful instructions for Dean to follow, knowing that without the option to save Sam, he'd have been just as broken as Dean.

* * *

He handed off his journal to Bobby, filled with everything he knew, and expected the hug that he was pulled into when he did so. He waited until night fell and double-checked, then triple-checked everything he'd written in the last blank pages of his journal. Those words would be as close to an inheritance as his boys would ever get.

"I really am sorry that things ended up this way, but your boys are in good hands. You don't have to worry about that," Bobby said.

"I know. I also know that readjusting won't be easy for either of them."

"They'll have each other. I think it's all they've ever needed. I'll keep my eyes out for a way to spring you that doesn't involve any of us sacrificing ourselves," Bobby said. "You deserve that much."

John gave him a curt nod. "Thanks, but don't feel bad when I say that I won't get my hopes up."

"Of course not."

"Well," John said, clearing his throat. He never thought that saying his goodbye to Bobby would be emotional, given the number of disagreements they had over the years, but Bobby was one of the few friends he had in the world of hunting. "You know what to do. Shouldn't take more than an hour, but you're gonna wanna keep an eye on Sam's body in the shed. I don't want him waking up thinking that he's alone. Give the journal to Dean once the shocks starts to wear off. Once you think he can handle it."

"I know what to do."

"Yeah, well, thanks for everything."

John turned and found Dean back in his spot on the couch, oblivious to what went on in the world around him. He crouched in front of Dean and put his hands on his shoulders, giving him a quick shake until Dean made eye contact with him.

"I know that I never really said it, but I love you, son. I love both you and Sam," he said. "I wish I could've had the chance to let Sam know that, too, but he only ever needed your love in the end, I think. Besides, I can't change the past. Only the future."

"How can you say that you love me, when I let him die?" Dean asked. His voice cracked and was barely more than a whispered rasp. "I was right there, but I couldn't do anything. Every time it matters, I can't help him."

John pulled Dean into a tight hug and let it last until Dean's breathing returned to normal and he wasn't in danger of breaking into another round of sobs, ignoring the stench of alcohol that clung to his son. It'd been a pattern over the days since they returned to Bobby's, and John didn't know which was worse: Dean's empty stare or Dean's sobs.

"It'll be okay, Dean," John said. "I'm going to go out for a bit and fix this. Try and eat something to regain your strength. Sam's gonna need you to be strong, okay? Get cleaned up, too. You know you can't be around Sam when you smell like alcohol."

He didn't know if his words were getting through to Dean, just that Dean was nodding like they were and Bobby knew what to do if they weren't.

He gave Dean a pat on the back and stood, turning to leave. He wished that the last time he saw Dean, Dean would be a little more coherent. A little more responsive.

Beggars couldn't be choosers.

* * *

There were a lot of days that John, at the time they happened, labeled as the worst day of his life. But life always tried to prove him wrong by landing him in even worse situations with almost devastating outcomes.

When Mary died.

When he almost lost Sam to a Shtriga.

When Dean almost died after being tossed around by a particularly nasty poltergeist and doctors whispered about possible complications that, thankfully, didn't come to fruition.

When he got a call from Dean in the middle of the night saying that Sam was gone.

When Sam died barely a week ago.

He knew that, when it came to the bad times, he'd still had a measure of luck. He'd gotten both of his boys out of the house fire that took his wife. He got there in time to save Sam from the Shtriga and he got Dean to the hospital quick enough that they prevented a bad situation from being worse. Dean had gotten Sam out of the nightclub.

And it was John's turn to rectify Sam's death.

He dug a hole in the middle of the crossroad, finding a bit of dark humor in the fact that this was probably the same crossroad that Sam used to make his deal.

He waited, at peace with his decision, but he didn't have to wait for long.

"John Winchester."

A woman stood in front of him with ruler-straight blonde her and flashed her eyes black.

"I imagine you know why I summoned you," John said. He didn't want to play any games with her. He came to make a deal and be done with it. No tricks.

"To save poor Sammy?" she asked. "I don't know if that's a deal I want to make. Hearing his screams echo through Hell is becoming the favorite past-time for a lot of demons."

"You can cut the bullshit. I know enough about your plans to know that you'd rather have me in Hell and him alive than him in Hell and me alive."

The woman shrugged, but couldn't completely hide the surprise on her face. "You know our plans, but still want to go through with this deal?"

John nodded. "I have different priorities."

"Father for son, then. If this doesn't make me Employee of the Month, I don't know what will," she said. "Although, I thought that it would be your other son who wanted to make this deal."

John was no stranger to that idea. Given enough time to recompose himself, Dean might've tried to make a deal for Sam, but John was going to make that unnecessary. Sam would need Dean more than Dean could know once he came back. Sam would need Dean in a way that he wouldn't need John.

Dean didn't see that. All he saw was the fact that he was alive, and his brother was dead.

"There's no need to stall. Make the deal," John said.

"You know how it goes," she said. "Seal the deal with a kiss."

The second after their lips met, he heard the hellhounds howling.

* * *

In a shed on Bobby's property, Sam's cold, stiff body shuddered back to life as he took a long, ragged breath.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Some of you guessed it, John made a deal for Sam. I'm thinking of wrapping things up with about two more chapters: Sam's return and then maybe a year in the future to see where they're at or something similar.

Anyway! As always, thank you for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting! I'm not sure that I would have made it through writing such a long series without the support from all of you!


	23. Hey, Brother

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Bobby had ushered Dean out to the shed, and he couldn't figure out what he was doing there. When he asked, Bobby only gave vague non-answers.

Dean really didn't want to spend the night out there, staring at Sam's body. His grey skin. He really didn't want to be reminded of the failure he couldn't forget.

Sam was cold and his body was showing the beginning signs of rot. The shed reeked of death, dirt, and stale blood, but Dean wasn't about to let himself throw up and desecrate the closest thing to a final resting place that Sam currently had.

They'd laid Sam so that his neck looked almost normal, almost unbroken, and Dean held onto the hope that Sam would sit up and play it off like it was all a sick joke.

But he knew that it wasn't and it was getting harder to breath with each second that he stood and stared at the body that once belonged to his only brother.

"Why'd you bring me out here, Bobby?" Dean asked. His voice was gravelly and coarse, sounding foreign to his own ears. "I… I can't."

"I know, son," Bobby said. "It ain't easy, but you'll understand why you're here soon enough."

He realized that John still wasn't there. Something was… off. His mind was running at minimal effort, only working enough to keep him alive, but when he thought about his last conversation with his father, it didn't seem right.

"Hey, Bobby, where did my dad go again?"

"He said he had something important to do."

"Important enough that he didn't include me?" Dean asked.

Bobby laughed under his breath, humorlessly. "You think you were in any shape to be included in something important?"

Dean kept his mouth shut. Since Sam died, his days had been a blur. Too long moments that turned into too long hours that turned into too long days, each second heavy with the knowledge that he'd never hear Sam's voice again. He'd never see Sam's eyes open and aware again. He'd never have the chance to help Sam cope with the mess his life had been for years, or the fact that he thought so little of his life, he sold his soul for a fucking hexbag.

There were too many things he'd never be able to do with Sam, or for Sam, again.

As his thoughts spiraled into darker territories, Dean's legs couldn't support him anymore. He fell to his knees, the weight of his failures crushing him.

How was it that, when the people he loved needed him the most, he let them down?

His brother was dead.

His father was gone, doing something that was apparently more important than mourning his son.

Then, he heard a ragged, gasping breath, and he knew that it hadn't come from Bobby or himself.

There was a shift in the air, a moment of suffocating darkness followed by a lightening of the atmosphere.

Dean stood up and saw Sam sitting up on the table, his skin regaining color and any signs of rot fading away. His chest was rising and falling with breaths that sounded grating and painful. His eyes were open. Unfocused and confused, but open.

"Holy shit," Dean said.

He moved closer, one hand on the table to support himself in his shock, but instinct soon took over. The oldest instinct he had: watch out for Sammy.

Watch out for Sammy, who currently looked to be on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said, keeping his voice low and soothing. "You're okay. Deep breaths."

Sam came back to reality a bit, or so Dean thought. Instead of calming down, Sam became more agitated when he noticed their presence. The look in his eyes turned from confused to wild and distrustful. Fearful, even, though Dean didn't want to admit to the possibility that Sam was so out of his mind, he was afraid of Dean.

Dean raised his hands, and saw Bobby do the same in the corner of his eye. He took slow steps towards Sam, like he was approaching a cornered animal. "We aren't gonna hurt you, Sammy, okay? It's just me and Bobby."

Sam shook his head and scooted back on the table, his long legs fumbling to push him backwards.

Dean lunged forward, uncomfortable with how close to the edge Sam was, and he was just in time to turn Sam's fall into an ungraceful collapse that left them a mess of limbs on the ground.

Sam was less than cooperative and struggled to get away as quickly as possible, but Dean refused to let him go (and he refused to think about how cold Sam's skin still felt). In this state, he was a flight risk. He was a danger to himself (and others, if the pain in Dean's side from Sam's knee was to be believed).

He didn't struggle for long, but Dean kept his grip on Sam long after his fighting died down. He couldn't trust that Sam wasn't trying to get Dean to let go so he could make a break for it.

"Sam, listen to me. I don't know where you think you are, or why you feel like you have to get away, but you're _safe_. You're safe and alive and here with me, Dean, and Bobby."

And Dean had no idea how Sam was there, alive and breathing, in his arms. He had no idea how it happened, but this was a miracle. If it was a dream, he never wanted to wake up. He wanted to stay here, with Sam, forever.

Sam could be as unhinged as he wanted, as long as he was alive to be unhinged.

"Dean, we gotta get him inside," Bobby said. "We'll get him warm and give him water. Let him get cleaned up."

"Yeah," Dean said. "Yeah, we do. Give me a hand. I'm not sure that all the fight is really out of him."

* * *

It turned out that the fight _had_ drained out of Sam after that initial burst. Dean didn't know if he should be relieved or worried, but he felt plenty of both.

He was complacent as they brought him into the house. He drank the glasses of water given to him (but they had to practically pour the water into his mouth). He let himself be lead into the bathroom, and Dean instructed him to take a shower. He must have listened well enough, because most of the dirt and grime that built up on his skin was gone when he came out of the bathroom (Dean, of course, was waiting right outside the door).

Then, he sat on the couch. Sam sat and stared at nothing in complete silence, hunched in on himself like he wished he could disappear.

And Dean sat next to him.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Dean asked.

Sam didn't make a sound. He didn't even move.

"Was it Azazel? I got him, you know. I killed him."

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

Dean dug the heels of his palms into his closed eyes, trying to relieve some of the dryness and the burn of exhaustion. He wished that his dad was there to help out, but every call went straight to John's voicemail, and he'd left more than a dozen messages since Sam came back. How could John be gone at a time like this? What could he be doing that was more important than being there when his sons needed him?

 _Both_ sons, alive and broken.

Bobby pulled one of Dean's hands away from his face and wrapped it around a warm mug, steam rising from the fresh coffee poured into it.

"Where the hell is my dad, Bobby?" Dean asked, moving both hands to cradle the mug, unaware of how cold he was until he held something warm.

Sam could use a warm drink, too, and Bobby had set a mug of hot chocolate on the coffee table in front of him. Not that Sam seemed to notice.

"Dean, I know that you're having a hard time with everything right now, but we need to talk," Bobby said. He glanced at Sam. "Alone."

While Dean was certain that Sam wouldn't know if they were talking or not, Bobby didn't make it sound like it was up for discussion. So, Dean nodded.

"We can get him upstairs. Maybe he'll sleep," he said.

He took a long drink of coffee (which couldn't remove his internal chill) and stood. Sam allowed himself to be pulled to his feet and guided up the stairs to their bedroom. There, Dean pushed him so he sat on the bed, then maneuvered him to lie down. Dean removed Sam's shoes from his feet and tossed them aside, covering Sam with the blankets.

"Try and get some sleep, Sammy," Dean said.

He waited for a minute for a response, but Sam remained still, staring at the ceiling with the same lifeless look in his eyes.

He looked far too much like he had after Dean saved him from Liu's club, when he couldn't tell if he was alive or not. What the hell happened that made him regress so badly?

Dean left the room, turning the light off and leaving the door open, and met back up with Bobby downstairs.

"What did you want to talk about?" Dean asked.

"I know that this is a tough time, and I know that you wish your dad was here to help out, but I suspect that you already know he won't be back," Bobby said. "I think that, somewhere deep inside, you know what happened."

Dean shook his head, trying to replay the last conversation he had with John in his head. "No. No, there's no way he would…"

Bobby sighed. "I'm sorry, Dean, but your dad made a deal for Sam. You know the dead don't spontaneously come back to life like Sam did. You had to suspect that something was off."

Dean took a few deep breaths, trying to wrap his head around the reality around him that kept changing. He was never going to see his father again. His father was in _Hell_. "Why? He didn't even… Why didn't he tell me?"

"Look, Dean, he believed that Sam's soul was in Hell because of the deal he made. He also figured that if _he_ didn't do it, _you_ would once you pulled yourself together enough to think of it," Bobby said. "There's a lot more to tell you, but I think that I've already given you more than enough to deal with right now."

"Sam was in Hell?" Dean asked. His mind struggled to get past that line of thought. "Is that why he's… like _that_?"

His dad was in Hell to get his brother (who'd lived through a personal Hell) out of Hell, and he was left to deal with the fallout of both situations.

"Maybe," Bobby said. "Can't tell when he's unresponsive, but it would explain his terror when he first came back. It would explain how detached he is now."

"I'd kill for a drink, but I don't think it's a good idea. Not with Sam like that."

"I hear ya," Bobby said.

Dean paced the kitchen floor a few times, then stopped. "I'm going to go back up by Sam. I don't know how to help him, but I'm damn sure going to be there if he needs me."

* * *

Dean lost count of how many cups of coffee he drank through the night, but the sun came up and Sam hadn't moved. He didn't so much as twitch during the night, and Dean wondered if he fell asleep at all.

He hoped that Sam was able to fall into a peaceful sleep, but he knew that he couldn't hope for much.

He reached out to put his hand on Sam's shoulder. See if he was awake, and wake him if he wasn't. But he pulled his hand away. He didn't know what happened to Sam, or where he was at in his mind, and he didn't want to risk making anything worse when he couldn't be sure how Sam would react to physical contact.

"Sammy, you awake?"

Sam didn't give a verbal answer, but he opened his eyes. That was… something. A start, Dean supposed.

"Sammy, Bobby said that you were… that you…"

Dean paused and tried to find the words to ask Sam the worst question he could ever think of asking his little brother.

"Were you in Hell, Sammy? Did you go to Hell when you died?"

Sam turned his head to look at Dean, his eyes a little more focused than the dull, blank look they had the night before. Dean thought that their interaction would end there, that it would be the most he got out of Sam. Then, Sam nodded. A small nod, barely noticeable.

And Dean's heart sank. He felt the world shake, even though he was certain that it remained as steady as it always did in South Dakota. He wanted to run. He didn't want to deal with any of this: his dad's deal or Sam's renewed trauma.

But Sam needed him. Sam probably needed him now more than ever before, and Dean would never abandon his brother (especially considering that he should have been able to prevent so much of the situation they were in). Without him, Dean doubted that Sam would attempt to do anything to try sustaining his own life, like eating or drinking.

"You know that you aren't there anymore, right?" Dean asked.

Sam hesitated, but nodded again.

"Oh, thank God," Dean said. "Hold onto that, if nothing else. We'll get through this, okay? I'm gonna get you through this. Tell me what I can do to ground you, and I'll do it."

Sam sucked in a shaky breath and Dean leaned forward as he started to talk, his voice quiet and small.

"I know because you're helping me, not hurting me," he said.

And that shattered Dean.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I know I said last chapter that there would only be two more, but this chapter took on a life of its own, so that is no longer true. While we are definitely very close to the end, the next chapter most likely will not be the last.

In the meantime, take a minute to review this chapter, and, as always, thank you for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting!


	24. Take a Breath

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

There were implications in Sam's words that Dean didn't want to think about. He knew that he was no longer in Hell because Dean was helping him instead of hurting him.

Dean would never intentionally hurt Sam. Never. What happened to Sam in Hell, well, Dean didn't think he wanted to know. Dean would be happy to never think again.

His brother had been to Hell, where he was hurt by something pretending to be him.

His father was currently in Hell, because he decided to sacrifice himself for Sam.

"I just… I need a minute," he said, he voice cracking. "I'm sorry."

He got up and left the room. Bobby was in his office, and he took only a second to ask him to watch over Sam before he grabbed the keys to the Impala. He was on the road in record time without a destination in mind or a clue as to how long he'd be gone.

Sam's room was suffocating him after Sam admitted that he knew he wasn't in Hell because Dean wasn't hurting him.

He implied that Dean hurt him in Hell.

Dean hurt him.

He pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine, resting his forehead against the steering wheel. The fresh air mixed with the scent of Baby's leather interior used to be a source of comfort for him, but it was difficult to be comforted by anything.

The car was technically his now. Completely his, and he never thought that he'd miss the days where his dad took it away from him because he fucked up. Because, at least then, his dad was alive to punish him.

He felt the burn of tears in the back of his eyes, and he let them fall. He couldn't let himself break apart like this in front of Sam; Sam needed him too much. But alone in his car in the middle of nowhere? Well, no one would see him. No one would know.

He cried to the point that his eyes hurt with dryness and his body couldn't produce any more tears. They were horrible, full-bodied sobs. Sobs for his father. His brother.

Himself.

And even when his tears stopped, he kept his head against the steering wheel. He had no more energy. He wasn't ready to face Sam again. He didn't know _how_ to face Sam. He didn't know how to deal with any of this, or what he was supposed to do next.

And for the first time, his dad wasn't there to help him.

Bobby was there to offer whatever help he could—Dean knew that—but it wasn't the same.

Nothing would be the same.

Dean needed to change. He couldn't keep going like this. With a deep breath, he raised his head, seeing for the first time evidence that he'd been gone far too long. The sun was setting, painting the sky shades of deep orange and red that melded with blues that grew deeper as they stretched away from the sun.

On another day, he might've been able to appreciate the beauty.

He checked his phone and found dozens of missed calls and voicemails, all of them from Bobby. When he re-dialed, he wasn't surprised that Bobby answered after the first ring.

"Where the hell have you been, Dean? I've been trying to reach you for hours."

"I know, sorry," Dean said. "I needed to clear my head."

"This isn't easy, I know that," Bobby said. "If anyone deserves a break from everything, it's you boys. But I need you to tell me what you're planning on doing because I don't want to have to deal with another Winchester going to Hell."

"Yeah, yeah. Look, I'm on my way back, okay? Tell Sam that, if he's not lost in his own head."

"We're gonna need to talk about what to do about him, Dean. I'm worried. The kid's been through so much already, but to add this to top it off?"

"Is he okay?"

Dean regretted running out for so long and leaving Sam behind in his current state. Sam needed him, and he left. If it took one sentence from Sam to reduce him to this, then how could he expect to help him through the rest of his time in Hell.

"He's… alive. I don't know how to tell anymore. Got him to eat a bit of toast and drink some water, but he's been quiet otherwise."

"At least you got something in his stomach," Dean said. "Look, I'll be back soon. We can talk more when I'm there."

Dean didn't wait for a response, ending the call and starting the Impala.

"We've got a long journey ahead of us, Baby," he said, running one hand over the steering wheel.

* * *

Dean leaned against the frame of the opened door, staring at Sam asleep on his bed. He hadn't moved very much during the day, but no one expected him to. He ate sometimes, and he drank sometimes. Really, they couldn't ask for more from him.

 _"How is he?"_

 _Dean looked over at Jim in the doorway and shook his head. "He's not getting better, and I don't know how I can help him," Dean said, keeping his voice as soft as Jim's to avoid waking Sam._

 _Dean moved to stand in the door beside Jim, easier to talk without worrying about Sam hearing or Jim not being able to hear him._

 _"I don't think he was awake that long before I went down to the kitchen—and I slept a long time, even went to bed after him. So I know he had to have slept for more than a day. Then, he came right back up here the first chance he got to lay there again," Dean continued. "I can't tell if he even realizes that he isn't back there anymore. He's just so shut off from the world."_

 _Dean didn't add how much that last part scared him. The doctor in Chengdu mentioned that Sam had been closing in on overdose territory, what if that meant Sam would never be entirely there anymore? What if it damaged the know-it-all brain that Dean loved to hate?_

 _"He went through more in a single month than some people go through in their entire life," Jim said. "None of it is easy to recover from."_

 _"I know," Dean said. "I just… this is all my fault. I have to be able to fix it."_

 _"Patience and love, Dean," Jim said. "Sometimes, that's all we can offer."_

 _"It doesn't feel like enough," Dean said. He wanted a plan. Something concrete. He needed a course of action laid out so that he knew what to do next. Right now, he felt more like he was trying to find purchase to avoid being swept away in the current of icy rapids. "Some of the fuckers responsible are still alive, and I can't even go hunt them down."_

 _"Does Sam know?"_

 _Dean shrugged and said, "Like I said, I don't know if he even knows that he isn't there anymore."_

 _Jim clapped Dean on the shoulder and didn't add anything more to the conversation._

"We could try taking him to Jim's," Dean said. "He's better at handling all the emotional stuff."

"He has stability here, and some familiarity. We could try putting him in another therapy program."

"I don't think there are any therapists equipped to handle someone who has literally been to Hell and back," Dean said. "And that leaves us with pretty much no options."

"We'll have to do what we always do," Bobby said. "Figure it out ourselves."

* * *

The world around him was… different. Different in that it was the normal he used to remember.

But he wasn't normal. He was disconnected and numb. The things that happened to him happened to someone else far away, hardly worth noticing.

Sam didn't feel pain, though, and that was all he cared about. He was just cold. Always cold. He didn't understand the how or why, but it seemed like he was freed from Hell.

Or the demons had set up a more elaborate trick than ever before. To… lure him into safety?

And then what?

What happened next?

What about the smell of sulfur? What about the screams of the other souls being tormented in Hell? The demons had never been able to mask those things in their false realities. Not completely.

The same way they could never imitate Dean perfectly. Did it hurt to be torn apart again and again by something taking the shape of his brother? To be taunted and tortured by a bastard wearing the face of the person he trusted the most? Of course.

But as long as he could believe that the evil double of his brother wasn't his _real_ brother, he could survive.

Now, he suspected that the man hovering over him constantly was really _Dean_. No demon would hold a bedside vigil, no matter how dedicated they were to their current form of psychological torture.

How long had he been gone?

 _Sam stared at the wall in his bedroom again. He knew Dean was behind him, watching and aware that he was awake. Before everything happened, he would have called his brother a creep and shared a laugh with him, but not anymore. Having Dean near gave him reassurance that he was safe now, but his mind was still having trouble understanding that he was safe. How did they manage to find him? The odds had to have been against it, he was sure there wasn't much to go on for his location._

 _The most logical answer his brain provided was that he was still in the nightclub, high on a cocktail of drugs. If he was hallucinating something this vividly, then it must be bad._

 _Not much made sense anymore, but the wall in front of him was steady so he focused on that. He let it ground him amidst the questions he needed to ask Dean, but just couldn't. Anytime he tried, his throat closed so tightly it hurt and the words got trapped inside. All the trapped questions were starting to hurt._

 _He wondered if Dean noticed it. If he could see his throat constrict to the point that breathing became difficult. With the way Dean watched him with hawk eyes lately, he'd have to guess that he did indeed notice. He just never brought it up. He never asked._

 _Not that Sam could have answered._

 _He still felt the fire inside of him. Each day he didn't use it, it grew stronger. More insistent. He started taking the sleeping pills left in the nightstand just to shut it up. Just to keep it suffocated within him so that his family wouldn't know that he wasn't the same person they wanted to save. He couldn't even be called a human anymore. Humans couldn't start fires_ _with their mind_ _._

He still felt a lot of questions that he couldn't ask. He still felt Dean watching his every move.

But he didn't ask the questions because he didn't want to know the answers, not because he couldn't physically get the questions out.

He no longer felt the fire within him, though. The power that was once so strong and insistent he couldn't ignore it.

Hell burned that away, too. And he wasn't sure he wanted to test if he still had his abilities.

He'd had enough fire for now.

Just like the last time he came back from something unspeakable, nothing was expected of him. That was okay, he thought. He couldn't organize his thoughts enough to be coherent on most days, how could anyone expect something of him beyond fulfilling basic human needs.

That thought both comforted him and depressed him. He should be doing… something. Dean needed… something from him.

He just couldn't figure out _what_.

More than the nothing he was giving him, he knew that much.

He shifted to face Dean, who looked like he needed to be in a bed more than Sam did. But, because Sam couldn't pull himself together, he was stuck holding bedside vigils again. Stuck taking care of a Sam that couldn't take take of himself, and it wasn't fair.

He'd been gone earlier. Without a sense of time, Sam didn't know how long Dean's absence lasted. While he hoped that he'd left for a moment of peace and rest, he doubted that was the case. Dean still had shadows under his eyes and his face was still pale and unshaven.

He watched Sam's face, waiting. Always waiting.

"How long?" Sam asked, a whisper.

Dean's eyes widened and he sat up from his slouched position in the chair. "How long what? How long were you… gone?"

Sam nodded.

"A week. About."

"Felt longer."

"How much longer?" Dean asked, leaning forwards and keeping his voice soft.

"Years," Sam said.

He thought Dean was going to get up and leave again, the same way he left when Sam said he knew he wasn't still in Hell because Dean was helping him instead of hurting him.

"I always knew," Sam said.

When Dean's face made it clear he wasn't following Sam's line of thought, he elaborated.

"I always knew it wasn't you. You'd never… it wasn't you."

Dean wrapped his arms around him and hauled him into a hug. It felt strange to be in physical contact with someone who wasn't trying to actively shred his soul, and he found the strength to lift his arms and return the hug. If anything, it made Dean hold on tighter.

"Never," Dean said. "I'd never hurt you. Not intentionally."

They stayed like that for a while, and Sam felt _safe_. Safer than he had in a long time. In too long of a time.

"If you ever want to talk about it, I won't run again. I'll listen. I'll do whatever I can to help you, Sammy."

Sam nodded into Dean's shoulder. He knew that, but he didn't feel up to talking. He suspected that Dean wasn't up to listening just yet either.

Not now.

* * *

Dean watched Sam sleep peacefully enough. Sam hadn't gone into detail about his experiences in Hell, but he opened up to Dean a little bit. If only to tell him that it felt like he was there for years and that he knew that whatever it was that had taken Dean's face wasn't _Dean._

He didn't realize how much he needed to hear those words until Sam said them.

Ever since, Sam had been slightly more connected to the world around him. He ate without having food shoved at him (sort of). He stayed hydrated of his own accord (mostly). He left the bedroom without being nagged to do so (sometimes).

He was slowly on his way to being functional as a human being in the most basic sense of the term, and Dean was ready to help him return to being _Sam_ in any way possible.

He wasn't going to let his dad's deal go to waste. He gave his life to save Sam, and Dean would do the same.

He'd just do it in a different way. Sam needed him alive.

"Dean," Bobby said.

"Hey, Bobby," Dean said. "He's doing better. A little bit of improvement each day."

"Don't forget how bumpy those first months after China were for him. Just because he's doing better today doesn't mean he's gonna be better tomorrow."

"I know, but I want to hold onto his progress."

It felt too much like those first months after China, where Dean walked on eggshells because he never knew what would send Sam spiraling into flashbacks.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but our lives don't allow for that sort of optimism. Always gotta prepare for the worst-case scenario, and that's how we save lives," Bobby said.

He came closer and set one hand on Dean's shoulder. "I hate to say it, son, but there's a chance that Sam won't fully get over this."

"Of course, he won't fully get over this," Dean said. His voice raised with each word, and he only lowered it once Sam shifted.

He nodded at the door, and Bobby followed him out of the room. Sam didn't need to hear them talking about him. He didn't need to have his rest (thankfully nightmare-free for the time being) interrupted.

"I know, Bobby," Dean said. "He _won't_ fully recover from this. He'll never be who he was when he was fifteen, before the shit-show of our lives took itself to the next level. He'll never be who he was just a few weeks ago, because he's been through literal Hell."

"So have you, Dean," Bobby said. "And I hate to say it, but your dad left behind some things that you should look at. I'm not saying that you need to go through it all right now, but you need to keep it in mind."

"Things about what?"

"About the future for you boys. He knew a lot more than he let on, and he wanted to entrust all that knowledge to you since he won't be around to watch over you two."

Dean took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. "Okay. Let me see it."

"Dean…"

"No, there's no use in putting this off. I'll go through whatever Dad left behind while Sam sleeps."

"If you're sure," Bobby said. "Just don't think that you need to go through it all in one night. You can take your time."

Bobby led the way to his office, and Dean followed. He pulled out John's journal, stuffed with loose papers, and handed it to Dean, saying, "Here you go."

Dean opened up to the first page.

" _I went to Missouri, and I learned the truth."_

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Okay, this time the next chapter really should be the last one. More of an epilogue.

As always, thank you for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting!

Please leave a review before you go.


	25. Moving Forward

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Special children like Sam. Children with powers that could be dangerous. Deadly, even.

Demon blood. Demonic omens. The mothers of those special children dying in a way identical to how Mary died.

Seals on a cage rumored to house _Lucifer_.

Dean read all this and more in his father's journal, which he kept in one of the drawers of the nightstand beside his bed. He considered moving it somewhere else. Somewhere Sam was less likely to find it.

But Sam was still working on the basics. He was still learning to take care of himself again. Besides, John made it clear in the journal entries he left behind that the knowledge was meant for Dean, and he only got to read it because John wasn't going to be there to try and thwart the convoluted future planned for them.

That task now fell to Dean, and he had no plans of failing.

Sam had enough on his plate, he didn't need the shit John kept from them added to that.

While Dean understood more about his father than ever before, he couldn't help but be resentful towards him. All this information, and he still didn't let them in on his secrets. He didn't let them in on the information he found regarding _their_ future. They could've prepared better. They could've made sure that Sam never fell into Azazel's grasp and got hooked on demon blood.

Instead, John latched onto the crazy idea that he needed to protect them from the plans revolving around them. They could've prevented so much, if they'd known. Instead, he wanted to shelter them to the point that they only took orders without asking what laid beyond the foundations they knew. He never wanted to answer questions, because he knew too much that he didn't want them to know.

No wonder he freaked out when Sam's powers manifested, too. He really thought he was going to have to kill his own son.

Sam came into the room and mirrored Dean by sitting on the edge of the opposite bed once he noticed him.

"What are you doing, Dean?" he asked.

His voice still had a lifeless tone that Dean hated. It never rose much above a whisper, but he was talking without being prompted, at least. Full, lengthy sentences, too (sometimes). That was more than Dean had to work with a month ago.

"Nothing. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"Everything," Dean said. "Our lives are… really fucked up."

Sam huffed out a laugh under his breath and shook his head. "You're telling me."

Dean couldn't believe how one mistake on one night years ago spiraled into where they were now. How would he ever blame Sam for their dad's death, when none of this would have ever happened if he could have just stayed in that shitty motel room for that one shitty night instead of going out and drinking?

Sam might have suspected where John had gone and he might have had questions about how he ended up alive again, but he hadn't asked.

Not that Dean planned to tell him the truth if he _did_ ask. Sam needed to work on putting himself back together, and nothing more.

"Maybe," Dean said. "Maybe we shouldn't get back into hunting."

Sam looked surprised at that, but there was a hint of what Dean hoped was relief in his eyes as well.

"I know that I'm not… Well, I'm not in hunting shape, and I don't think I'll ever make a reliable hunting partner again. But you don't have to give it up, Dean. I know you love the hunt," he said.

Dean shook his head. "Hunting has been the cause of almost all the bad shit in our lives. It's the reason we're so messed up, and Mom's killer is dead. We started hunting to kill Azazel for killing Mom, and we succeeded. What more is there for us to do?"

"What about saving the people who have no idea about what's really out there?"

"At what cost?" Dean asked. "Why should we have to keep sacrificing ourselves for strangers? I'm sick of it, man. I'm sick of all of it."

Sam didn't say anything else, and the silence stretched on for minutes. "What else would we do?"

Dean hadn't thought that far ahead, but it was a minor detail in the grand scheme of things.

"I don't know," he said. "You could get your GED and continue on in school if you wanted. I'm sure Bobby wouldn't mind having an extra set of hands around to help with the Salvage Yard. We can do whatever we want, Sammy. Anything you want."

Dean longed for the fifteen-year-old Sam who wanted nothing more than a stable home and the chance to make real friends at a school he could attend for more than a handful or weeks or a couple of months. He wished that he could go back and give this opportunity to that Sam. Save him from the hell that his life would become over the next few years. Keep away the scars on his soul.

But he couldn't do any of that. The most he could do was give this already broken Sam the chance to heal for as long as he needed. Forever, even.

"I don't know what I want," Sam said.

"That's okay," Dean said. "You don't have to know right now. We can figure it out."

Sam smiled, and Dean knew he made the right decision for once.

* * *

Dean was out in the yard, working on one or another of the junkers that may or may not run again. Sam stared out the window for a while, but he couldn't see Dean from inside. He only saw the dreary clouds that promised rain and maybe thunder.

But he saw _clouds._ Not smoke or fire or bits of meaty flesh dangling from meat hooks.

He knew that those were the things his dad saw. That demon who brought him down to The Pit made sure they passed Sam on his way back up.

They wanted him to know that he was the reason his dad would be burning in Hell. He also knew that if they were willing to take John's soul in place of his, then his soul would never be worth enough for them to reverse the trade.

His dad had to have known that he was making a one-way trip. If Sam knew of any way to save him, he'd do it.

But he didn't. He only knew that he was going to spend this infinite break from hunting that Dean offered learning everything he could about demons and Hell. There had to be a way to rescue a soul that didn't involve a deal. If that way existed, Sam was going to find it.

He owed his family that much.

Bobby's door shut without him having realized it opened in the first place and someone had walked in.

"Whatcha looking for, Sam?" Bobby asked, wiping grease stains from his hands with an old rag.

Sam shrugged one shoulder. "I thought I might be able to see Dean from here, but I just see the sky."

It amazed him how much easier it was to find his words again this time around. There were days where he could almost convince himself that Hell was a distant nightmare, not a real event in his life. But there was a persistent, chilling emptiness at his very core that prevented him from believing that he hadn't been to Hell after all.

"Well, the sky is easier on the eyes than your brother, ain't it?" Bobby asked, a grin spreading across his face. "If you're worried that he'll disappear, you're wasting your energy. You know he's not gonna stray that far from you without saying something first."

"It's not that," Sam said. "I just… A lot has happened, you know? Dean doesn't want to hunt anymore, or he says he doesn't. I don't know where we go from here."

"Wherever you wanna go," Bobby said. "And I'll be right here to help you boys in any way that I can."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam said. "For everything."

Bobby nodded and smiled at him.

* * *

It was the middle of the night, but the darkness felt all-encompassing after witnessing the raging fires of Hell in his sleep. He was strung up next to Jerry and Rich. He heard Liu's screams. He heard demons laughing and taunting tortured souls.

He'd never encountered any of them during his short (according to Dean) time in Hell, but that didn't make his dreams feel any less real.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, marveling at the human body's ability to sweat and shiver simultaneously.

He registered Dean's presence, then. The soft shushing he made and the small circles he rubbed on Sam's back with one hand. Both things that soothed him as a child.

"You're okay, Sammy. Just a nightmare. You're safe," Dean said. "I'm here."

Dean was talking to him like he was a child again, too. But, when he thought about it, he didn't mind so much. He'd spent three years without his brother as a constant in his life, and now even though he was hovering, Sam was thankful for him. He wasn't sure that he'd be able to keep the few remnants of sanity he had left without Dean there.

Sam's breathing slowed and his heart started to get the hint that he wasn't running a marathon.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Dean asked.

"I don't know how to talk about Hell," Sam said, his voice more unsteady than he would have liked. "Sometimes, when the memories are really bad, I think I would have preferred to never be rescued from Liu. Live out the rest of my life in a drug-induced haze."

He didn't need light to know that Dean tensed up in his crouched position beside his bed.

But Dean turned the light on anyway and stood up, moving across the room to his own bed.

While Sam wanted to ask what he was doing, he didn't want to sound so needy. If Dean wanted to just go to sleep, then he should be able to make that choice.

But why turn the light on if that was the case?

Sam watched as Dean started moving the furniture in the bedroom before he slid his own bed across the room until it was pressed against Sam's. Only then did he turn off the light and climb into the now-joined beds.

"Aren't we a bit old for this?" Sam asked.

"Does it make you uncomfortable?"

"No, but… do you really want to share a bed with your younger brother, who also happens to be an adult?"

"No part of our lives has been normal," Dean said. "If this makes you feel better and keeps the nightmares away, then this is how we're gonna sleep."

Sam lied back down, staying on his own bed while Dean settled himself easily in the next bed. He knew he probably wouldn't wake up on his own side, like when he was fifteen and they slept this way because Sam was even more broken then (the secret of his powers and the feeling of isolation that accompanied them didn't help at the time), but he still had a shred of independence left telling him that he could, at the very least, sleep on his own.

With Dean there to guard him from nightmares, he wasn't afraid of falling asleep. He'd been unlucky in so many ways, but he was lucky in just as many by having a brother like Dean and a family friend like Bobby.

"Dean?"

"What?"

"Thank you," Sam said.

"You don't gotta thank me, Sammy," Dean said. "You never have to thank me."

Sam didn't know what their future held. He didn't know if they would get out of hunting, or if hunting would keep drawing them back into a world that most of the population couldn't even imagine existed.

He closed his eyes and listened to the wind shake tree branches and leaves beyond the bedroom window. He listened to the creaking and groaning that came from an old house.

For now he had Dean. He had Bobby.

He had safety, even in the darkness.

Morning would come, and the sun would rise.

It always did.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** So, here it is. The end. The _end_ end. We did it guys. Maybe the Apocalypse will still happen. Maybe Dean will find a way to thwart it. For now, they are content with just being alive.

As Chuck says, endings are hard.

Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me through this trilogy, and of course a huge thanks to M.J. Ellsworth, without whom this trilogy would never have been written. As of now, my only on-going story will be Desolation. If you haven't checked it out, please do so! It's an End!verse AU.

Since this is the final chapter, please leave a review before you go!


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